Grudge Match!
by Lou Serbio
Summary: Kim Possible vs. Shego in their FIERCEST confrontation ever...in New Jersey![read & review would be welcomed & appreciated]
1. Round 1

It was to inevitably happen. Kim knew. Shego knew.

They had battled countless times in the past; acrobatics lessened, physicality intensified. After every recent battle Kim had to bathe in Epsom salts, but Shego had progressively angered. An invisible aura of hatred engulfed those two women, resulting in a feast for the eyes of those who liked to see two women duke it out.  
  
The pale skinned villainess always lost. And that's why this was going to happen.  
  
Middleton High School, Friday morning.  
  
Kim Possible, the redheaded teen heroine, rummaged through her locker, until she saw a moving lump under a sweater. After a terse gasp, a smile widened on the sixteen year-old girl's face as she removed the garment to see a sleeping naked mole rat. Rufus' legs jerked back and forth as if he were dreaming.  
  
"Oh, Rufus, how the hell did you get in here?" The cheerleader sympathetically asked, then realized. "Right, I ask this of an animal that can program a TiVo."  
  
Meanwhile, Ron Stoppable, the best friend and sidekick of the world-saver, pried his way through the rumble of the high school students. He saw Kim while she lifted his rodent off of her locker floor. "K.P., you found Rufus!"  
  
When they met, she handed him over. "I don't know why he gravitated toward my sweater, Ron."  
  
"Oh, hey, maybe he needed to know what it's like to have fur," he analyzed, as he slid the rat into his pants leg-pocket. "He's _naked_, you see."  
  
"Uh-huh, listen, my locker isn't equipped to have rodents as yours is," Kim said. "And I really don't want to see little Rufus raisins at the bottom! So keep better track of him, okay?"  
  
"_Rufus raisins_!" Ron squeaked out and stifled a chuckle. "That's a good one, K.P."  
  
"Ron, there are times when hanging around you could be hazardous to my mental heath," she said after she exhaled sharply and rolled her eyes.  
  
The monitor that sat within the middle of her locker hummed, and then a ten year-old boy-genius named Wade appeared on screen.  
  
"Wade, what's the sitch?" She addressed him.  
  
"Kim, Ron, looks like you guys are gonna have to get notes from your parents today," Wade seriously said.  
_  
"_Oh, like when Spike Lee wanted kids to skip school to see 'Malcolm X?'" Ron asked. "I wished my folks would have let me go."  
  
"You were six years old, Ron," Kim noted.  
  
"True, but I was _so_ in touch with my African roots then," he said.  
  
"You guys, can we focus here?!" Wade abruptly said. "There is a major disturbance at a mall in New Jersey. Here's the news feed."  
  
The screen cleanly cut to Channel 9 News coverage of a hostage crisis at the Garden State Plaza in Paramus, NJ. The female voice over was picked up from the cut. "Once again, a superhuman woman is holding workers and patrons hostage at the Garden State Plaza. We've learned that at least one person is dead, and she that she has threatened to kill more if a teenage super-spy Kim Possible does not arrive within the hour. We have a description of the woman as 5'7 in her mid twenties, she has pale white skin but we are uncertain if it is makeup. She is clad in a green jumpsuit and according to the FBI she is wanted in many of the United States for numerous crimes."  
  
"Holy freakin' shit," Ron said with his jaw wide open. "Shego."

"She...she killed someone." Kim paused then quietly uttered, "Because of me?"  
  
Ron saw how Kim just slipped into another world, and did not like what he saw. "Kimberly!"  
  
Hearing her full first name shouted by Ron was unusual, but it snapped her to. She shook her head like a dog would and became alert.  
  
"Wade, a ride, stat," She barked.  
  
"They're by you right now," he answered, back on screen. "And Kim...it wasn't your fault."  
  
"That bitch should be in prison," she said through clenched teeth, then slammed her locker shut loud enough to halt the rumbling crowd. "Of _course_ it's my fault!"  
  
As Kim stormed down the hall the crowd parted like the Red Sea. Ron quickly followed, an expression of worry fixated on his face.  
  
Paramus, NJ. Police officers advanced on the food court where Shego held the housewives and elderly. Now these men are dead. They had not known what Shego was capable of; so ill equipped to deal with her clawed, incendiary powers. 

They just tried too soon.

The villainess tore out the throat of one young officer, and gutted another, middle aged cop. She was stealthy, fast, and vengeful. Several more officers were dispatched in a grosser and even more ruthless manner. Their blood flowed across the hard floors.  
  
"So much for national security; you'd think after 9/11 these assholes would try harder." She said it loudly, and coldly, with zero regard to the choice of words. Shego turned to the hostages, and at the same time saw snipers made their way in. She played it smart and took cover behind their baby carriages.  
  
"Guess what boys," she started in her normal speaking voice; parabolic microphones were affixed to her. "No matter how good a shot you all think you are, if one of you cocksuckers takes that shot at me, I will hear the incoming bullet. Then one of these losers will be my shield."  
  
"Oh, My God," outside in the parking lot, a Paramus police chief heard the radio transmission.  
  
"Do _not_ assume I am bluffing," Shego said. "I'll kill one person for every ten minutes Kim Possible is late. Have a nice day."  
  
Airborne, somewhere across Georgia.  
  
"What's the word," Kim asked with her head in her hands as she sat on the plane. She allowed Ron to view the news footage on her Kimmunicator.  
  
"Shego--the girl's totally lost it, Kim," Ron flatly said, and pet the sulking Rufus. "Even Drakken did not have this kind of brutality.'  
  
"How many are dead?" Kim instinctively asked, and still not looked up.  
  
Ron paused, having never heard this question asked of him. This was the part of their job that they never considered. Up until today, no one died. They had never thought about what might have been had they never continually stopped Dr. Drakken, or the Monkey King, or Senor' Senior Sr., but even they had a well thought out plan. Even they had order to their chaos, but Shego murdered people based solely on pure hatred for one girl.

"Far too many," Ron generalized.  
  
"I'm to blame, Ronald." She used his given name and this meant she was not thinking in everyday Kim terms. "Here I am, cheerleading, playing the bubblehead role, when this bitch Shego had pent up frustrations and is taking lives."  
  
Ron rested a hand on her black uniform shirt. Kim swatted it away and still, had not looked up at him.  
  
"Shego had pent up frustrations long before she met us," Ron tried to reassure her. "Look at how she taunts Drakken and how she talks to you! Hell, remember how crappily she treated her old teammates, who were her damn _family_?!"  
  
For the first time during the flight, Kim raised up her red head. She gave a knowing wince at Ron. "But she's just _murdered_ people, she probably is right now as we speak," Kim repeated.  
  
"That is **not **your _fault_, God damn it!" Ron forcefully answered. This was the first time Ron had been so aggressive with her. She was slightly comforted, but not necessarily reassured.  
  
"There's no denying my existence was the catalyst," Kim said.  
  
Ron rolled his eyes and loudly groaned, which Kim ignored. He remained worried about her potential lack of focus.  
  
Their flight was on an experimental supersonic passenger jet, a favor returned after she once readjusted NASA satellites to their proper orbit. Airspace was cleared for this particular jet, as was Route 17 adjacent to the mall. After its landing on the highway, the jet completely stopped, Ron and Kim stepped out of the chamber, and jogged through the bevy of police cars and unmarked FBI vehicles. One random officer stopped them.  
  
"You Kim Possible?" The officer asked with disgust.  
  
"Uh, yeah, can I speak to whoever is in charge?" She politely asked.  
  
The officer, bearing heavy firearms, grunted and pointed to a bearded, suited man. Kim and Ron jogged past them and through a crowd of armed officers. Their dirty looks sent quivers down her spine, as she had never felt before. Ron had the same feeling, albeit no one really stared at him. The mole rat Rufus could only peek and hide again from Ron's pocket.  
  
The O.I.C., FBI Special Agent Nicholas Phillips, watched the two teen-agers approach him. He exhaled sharply and spoke to Kim.  
  
"I don't know what the fuck this world is coming to when we got young _kids_ defending our country," was his wonderment.  
  
Kim did not know how to respond to that, but then said, "While you're wasting your breath, people in there are dying, or have you forgotten that?"  
  
"No, I have _not_, young lady!" Phillips snapped, and for the first time Kim felt inhibited. Since these circumstances were unusual for Phillips, the agent had to cooperate with Kim. "She wants to see you. I don't want to see either of you get hurt."  
  
"You have no choice but to let me in there," Kim said. "She has a grudge against me."  
  
"You need _us_. You have no choice either!" He referred to the SWAT snipers already stationary on the parapets, as Shego was moving her hostages from store to store.  
  
"Whatever," she said, and she started to head towards the mall. 

"Just one minute." Phillips said as he grabbed her arm. He suddenly felt paternal towards Kim, for he had a daughter the same age.

He dragged her toward a squad car away from prying ears. "What exactly do you expect to accomplish in there? She obviously isn't the same woman you're used to fighting."  
  
Kim was visibly taken aback by his wisdom and insight.  
  
"Yeah, that's why I'm running things," was his rhetorical answer. "Well?"  
  
Kim paused, for he was correct. It was not the same woman and this would be no ordinary fight. The passing seconds seemed like hours for her to process that she may not survive, but she steadfastly answered, "I'll do whatever it takes to defeat that so-called woman."  
  
"I can prevent you from doing this, Miss Possible," Phillips said.  
  
"And I can prevent Shego from doing any more harm to others," she countered.  
  
"Then go," Phillips sighed in his conclusion. For some reason, she hugged him. Out of thanks? She ran over to Ron, who looked anxious to enter the fray.  
  
"Okay, Kim, are we ready to kick Shego's ass?" Ron said, rubbing his palms together.  
  
"_We_ are not going in there," she said. "Only me this time, partner."  
  
Ron double-took and said in his best Arnold Drummond voice, "Whachu talkin' 'bout, Kim?"  
  
"Ron, I have no time to argue with you," she said, leaned inward, and pressed her lips against his into a kiss that neither of them had experienced since the day the Moodulator was attached to her neck. "Remember this: you're my best friend whom I love very, very much." With that, she shimmied between the squad cars and then across the parking lot toward the mall.  
  
Phillips walked over toward Ron who stood and stared at his best friend the heroine.  
  
"I want to know why she does this," Phillips asked Ron.  
  
Ron was processing what was, and what was to be, and almost did not hear his question. As he nuzzled Rufus with his thumb, Ron found the appropriate answer for Agent Phillips.  
  
"Because she can."

_**The characters in this story are the property of Disney and Buena Vista Television.**_


	2. Round 2

The Possible parents had finished their Friday morning staple of breakfast at the café', and normally Dad would go to his rocket science job and Mom would depart to the hospital and perform brain surgery. But Mrs. Possible accidentally left her purse at home, so she decided to retrieve it.  
  
She entered their house and found the purse near her computer. When she lifted it from the desk, she jarred the mouse and deactivated the screensaver.  
  
"You've Got Mail!"  
  
Mrs. Possible shrugged, sat down and logged in to their AOL account. The several messages were mostly junk mail, but one was marked "Urgent" from her only daughter with the subject line reading "To Mom." Mrs. Possible arched her eyebrow and clicked the message that had a wav. attachment. Kim appeared on the screen, and her background wasn't at school.  
  
"Hi, Mom. This is in case you and Daddy haven't had the chance to watch CNN today, so I'll tell you what my latest mission was in this way. If you remember Shego, well, she's had what you might term a psychotic episode and murdered many people in a mall here in New Jersey, just to call me out. This means the stakes are a lot higher when I confront her. This is also why I record this message before I try to stop her."  
  
Kim's voice choked up, and she paused as she stared into the camera of her Kimmunicator.  
  
"I doubt if I'm going to survive this particular endeavor. So understand how you two are the best parents any girl could ever ask for, and I love both of you with every cell of my body. I also want to thank you both for allowing me to do this little gig for this long, helping people. It's been really, truly gratifying. I want everyone who knew me to remember how much I cared, especially you, Daddy and Ronald."  
  
Tears began to flow like a river down the face of Mrs. Possible. She had never felt so helpless.  
  
"At the same time though, if the worst has happened, I want to apologize for letting all of you down, and I tried my best, so do not blame yourselves if I am gone."  
  
Mrs. Possible touched the screen with the tips of her fingers and traced the image of Kim.  
  
"Oh, one last thing, Mom: Jim and Tim do not get my bedroom!" The message ended as the picture cut to black.  
  
Mrs. Possible lightly laughed through the sobbing, but the direness overwhelmed her and she whispered, "My little baby."  
  
*Twenty eight days earlier, Liberty Island, NY/NJ  
  
"Kim Possible, you think you're all that! But you're not!" Dr. Drakken screamed as he hung by his fingertips from a flame of Miss Liberty's gold torch. His plans to animate her were thwarted.  
  
Ron Stoppable and Kim Possible stood parallel to the base of the Statue of Liberty and stared upward,  
  
"My question is, at what point in time did Drakken begin to think he was 'all that?'" Ron asked while Rufus stood on his shoulder and cheered.  
  
The two teens noticed when the Coast Guard had stepped on shore and arrested Shego, who was tied up on the grass field. As they lifted Shego to stand, her eyes darted towards Kim. The teen heroine shrugged off her primal glance.  
  
"God, she gave me such a workout today," Kim offhandedly told Ron. "I haven't a clue what her beef was!"  
  
"Really, she was more of a problem than usual?" Ron asked.  
  
"Well, I barely dodged those stupid fiery green hands of hers. She nicked me a few times," Kim listed. "She was like a plowshare who really wanted to get to the soil!"  
  
"Nothing new," Ron noted.  
  
"No? She hissed at me like a damn cobra on every lunge. She was weird."  
  
"Uh huh, maybe it's her time of the month or something," Ron said.  
  
"Ron! What a sexist thing to imply!" She chided. But Ron raised his eyebrows and crossed his arms. His body language indicated how he had not implied.  
  
"Yeah, that seems likely," Kim agreed.  
  
*Today, Garden State Plaza, Paramus, NJ  
  
Kim emailed her message, and then smashed her Kimmunicator to unrecognizable pieces on the sidewalk. She stared back at the horizontal fleet of law enforcement vehicles and it weighed heavily upon her that she was their hope. During her pan and scan, Special Agent Phillips and Ron stood side by side, and resembled small action figures from the distance she was from them.  
  
She assumed that they used binoculars and gun sights, so glanced over in Ron's direction and mouthed three words; a reiteration of her sendoff to Ron, "I love you." Kim swung open the glass door and went inside.  
  
One of Kim's favorite places to hang out back in Middleton was the Mall. Today she never wanted to be at one less.  
  
Bright sunlight shone through the ceiling windows of one of the largest malls in the state. No matter how aesthetically pleasant it was, it also had a sick eeriness, given the circumstances. There was no human being in sight and even for a Friday morning it was unusual. Kim assumed Shego had corralled the captive patrons elsewhere in the quiet, hollow complex and continued her own cautious stroll.  
  
Several minutes and yards later, Kim climbed a stalled escalator two steps at a time. She alertly continued the search on the parapets of level two, and passed by several clothing stores, a Bed Bath & Beyond, Waldenbooks, and many kiosks.  
  
"Attention K-Mart shoppers," A voice rung out. "Today our special sale is a gutted teenage-girl!"  
  
The voice was familiar, but changed. It sounded like Shego, but almost not. Kim was momentarily startled by the chilling announcement but bravely resumed her mall trek.  
  
Suddenly, circus music resonated from far ahead. Kim hustled toward that sound, but stopped and double-checked before each corner. The music amplified as she drew closer and once she checked the corner where it was loudest, she leapt around it to see.  
  
It was a life-sized kids' merry-go-round that was spiraling. As it rotated, Kim saw a dead SWAT officer snared to one of the horses. Kim stepped back at the horrific bloody sight of this hacked-to-death policeman.  
  
"No," she uttered.  
  
"Yes!" The voice joyously and menacingly screamed.  
  
Standing precariously on the railing was the villainous Shego, one-time associate of Dr. Drakken, current cop-killer.  
  
Kim spun around and saw no one.  
  
"How the fuck..?" Kim said.  
  
Kim leaned over the railing to quickly glance at the first floor, and then sprinted in the opposite direction of her initial approach. This time she surfed down the railing of a closer escalator.  
  
Kim landed in a pool of blood, gasped as it splashed on her pants, and staggered backward into a never-ending lake of blood. The adjoined pools shimmered with continuous drops, prompting the young teen to look upward. Strapped to the underbelly of the upper parapets were the police officers Shego disemboweled and dismembered.  
  
Ron never gave her the number of dead, and now she understood his reason.  
  
Kim's dysphoria was prominent upon seeing so many corpses. The smell was causing her nausea. The blood dripped in lines onto Kim's hair, skin, clothes and boots. It never occurred to Kim to find refuge in a store to escape the crimson storm and lake that trapped her like horrid, human glue. Her eyes burned and her eyesight was glazed over. The teen was momentarily blinded.  
  
Then she heard the laughter.  
  
It was Shego's, and it amplified as the sightless Kim forged her way through the falling blood lines.  
  
"Stop laughing, you fucking maniac!" Kim hollered, but barely heard herself, as if cotton were stuck in her ears.  
  
The laughter, however, got louder and louder, not necessarily because Shego turned up her own volume. It was because the vision impaired Kim Possible got closer to it.  
  
And then, after what seemed like hours, Kim stopped moving.  
  
Kim felt as if she slammed into a brick wall, for there was no resilience to Shego's body. Kim scraped away the blood from her eye sockets, in the hopes that this was nothing but a nightmare from which she would awaken. The hope dissipated once the murderer was visible. Shego held a black umbrella that deflected the rain of blood that almost drowned her young enemy. A wide, bright smile crossed the pale skinned woman's face. As Shego saw Kim hunched over only millimeters in front of her, she chuckled and only said one thing.  
  
"What's the sitch...bitch?" 


	3. Round 3

*9 hours and 33 minutes earlier, Ryker's Island Prison, women's ward.  
  
Shego seduced a butch female guard ever since the first day she entered the jail. The former super heroine was amused by Officer Trask.  
  
As Shego washed dishes alone on the late shift, Trask showed up. The masculine, but female guard licked her lips but alertly kept watch as she encroached Shego, whom she always thought she looked real good in that prison uniform.  
  
"Hey, sweetie," the officer said menacingly.  
  
Shego ceased scrubbing the pots, turned around and struck a sexy pose that made Trask dizzy.  
  
"Hello, Trask. What brought you here?" She purred.  
  
"Oh, you know; can't resist the taste of fish every now and then, especially how you serve it so damn hot," Trask grunted, and wiped the sweat off her own brow.  
  
While Trask took off her jacket and moved closer. Shego seemed to assist her in watch. The guard unsheathed her defense baton and pushed the tip of it against the soft part of Shego's jaw line. The pale skinned inmate widely grinned.  
  
"Wrong spot," Shego offhandedly said. Shego ran hands over the extra oddly shaped, borderline male frame of Trask.  
  
"Yeah, well why don't you show me the right spot, honey?" Trask responded. Shego backed into the edge of sink and pushed off her uniform pants. No underwear was in sight.  
  
The grotesquely butch, blinded by lust Trask met her, then traced the baton between her exposed legs.  
  
"Ah ah ah, honey," Shego interrupted with a domineering voice. "Work that tongue magic."  
  
"Yeah," Trask lifted the inmate up and over the sink, propped Shego's legs atop her shoulders, and moved her bulbous head closer to her crotch.  
  
When Trask finally engaged her, Shego closed her eyes in what seemed to be ecstasy. A minute or two passed while the convict lay atop the filled to the rim sink with her elbows immersed. Slowly her right arm sunk deeper into the soapy water. The trained officer happened to take notice and ceased.  
  
"Hey what're you—"  
  
Trask never completed asking. Shego lifted her right hand from the water and jammed a four inch shank deep into the right eye of the guard. Blood spattered all over the torso and exposed area of the killer. Trask, with too much brain trauma to even scream, had no awareness of her whereabouts. Shego leapt down from the sink and grabbed the heavy baton from the floor.  
  
"Sorry, darlin'. You were fun while you lasted." Shego bent the words in mock appreciation. Trask then fell over with a loud thud and died on the spot. Shego quickly disrobed the guard, put on the clothes, and stuffed the remaining space with towels to mimic bulk. Luckily the blood spatter was minimal on the uniform, so the jacket concealed most of it.  
  
Within minutes and without question, Shego executed a seamless, covert escape from Riker's Island Prison, one that would go unnoticed until roll call.  
  
*Today, Paramus, New Jersey, mall parking lot.  
  
Special Agent Nick Philips was speaking to other officers about the situation while the blonde teen Ron Stoppable was vigorously pacing, and appeared to be more concerned than ever before.  
  
Phillips took notice of the consistency of Ron's pace and stopped him.  
  
"Listen young man, you've got to calm down," Phillips said.  
  
"Kim's in there thinking she's gonna die or something," Ron screamed.  
  
"I said that's enough!" Special Agent Phillips held Ron by his shoulders and looked at him directly in the eye. He then stood up straight and inhaled deeply. "I have a daughter who's your friend's age. Since she was born, I've worried about whether or not the criminals and terrorists I put away will remember who I was and then attack her, just to get at me."  
  
"What's your point, J. Edgar?" Ron snapped. "Just cuz Kim thinks almost like you, you're gonna let her confront a psycho?"  
  
"Legally, yes."  
  
"Legally? What the hell does that mean?"  
  
"Kim is a citizen who happens to be a minor, but she is still not breaking any laws."  
  
"Oh, really? A: She crossed a police line," Ron listed. "B: She's compromising a murder scene!"  
  
"A: We allowed her to cross it," he answered his first point. "B: We haven't declared it a murder scene yet."  
  
"Well I guess all your dead officers will have some difficulty giving you that specific info, now wouldn't they?" Ron remarked, which prompted a stone-cold stare from Special Agent Phillips. Ron realized how tactless his own comment was.  
  
"Young man, there are still other people in there," Phillips noted. "We can no longer do anything at this point but wait."  
  
"Like hell! I'm not gonna just stand around here with my thumb up my ass while my best friend risks her life for you!" Ron sprinted towards the mall.  
  
"Stop him!" Phillips ordered.  
  
The nimble Ron skirted between several officers' grabs. He saw two officers encroaching from either side, but leapt with a split over them and they collided. Ron was proud of that particular achievement and looked back on the end result.  
  
"Sayonara, suckers!" Ron yelled. Then, a nanosecond later after Ron looked ahead, he impacted with cold, hard plastic: a bullet shield held by a large police officer. Ron stuck to it like tape, then skidded down it, groaned and touched pavement.  
  
"But mom, I don't like matzo ball soup..." Ron slurred. Then Phillips ordered the teen to be shackled and placed in a squad car.  
  
*Garden State Plaza, Paramus, NJ  
  
Shego was poised with her umbrella in front of blood-soaked Kim Possible. The bodies that the villainess defiled were drained all over the heroine. Suddenly a hard fist crashed into the bridge of Kim's nose.  
  
Reeling from the pain of the punch, Kim stumbled into the inch of gore. She crab crawled backward as Shego pursued.  
  
"Wh—where are the hostages?" Kim asked.  
  
"Christ, aren't you ever the caring hero," Shego said while Kim crawled through the red pond into an open section of the mall. "They're tucked away not-so-safely in this mall, trapped by a little impenetrable energy cage that Drakken created."  
  
"You--you massacred all these police officers," Kim noted and still crawled.  
  
"No, I didn't," Shego denied. "Some of 'em are just mall security."  
  
Shego impatiently leapt at Kim with the intent to stab at least part of her with the umbrella tip. Kim suddenly energized, rolled out from her landing and jolted upward.  
  
Kim flew in and quickly attempted several martial arts moves, but Shego refused to toy and immediately backhanded Kim to her jaw. The blow rotated Kim in midair before she landed with a crack to a clean section of the hard floor.  
  
"Why are you doing this?" Kim asked, tried to gather her bearings, and groaned while she knelt hunched over.  
  
"You seem to have all the fucking answers," She bitterly responded. "You can figure it out."  
  
The villainess swiftly approached Kim, who struggled too late and took a thunderous Shego boot to her ribs. Kim felt a couple of them crack and keeled over.  
  
"You have to have a—"winded, she gasped for air. "--reason for doing this!" Kim tried to buy time and slowly stood up.  
  
Shego was cold, calculated and not to be manipulated by Kim. She speedily bounded to within inches of Kim. Kim saw the raven hair of Shego thrust toward her but felt her hard skull collide into her face. A right cross, a left cross, a boot to the sternum and a dead-on jaw uppercut: Kim felt all of them impact on her.  
  
"Y'know what, now that you've been somewhat tenderized, I'll grant you my reason for doing this," Shego confided while she circled the dazed Kim. "First of all, I am twenty-nine and I'm getting extraordinarily sick of you, who is what—fifteen, sixteen?--giving me even a remote challenge."  
  
Kim could barely hear Shego's rant, for blood caked in her ears. What scared her most what that she wasn't certain if it was her own or not. As she writhed on the ground, the young teen wished she could shut down her pain receptors. Kim had not taken this kind of punishment since she chose her line of work.  
  
"Besides that, I'm choosing to show you the real world, Possible. This isn't Alias or James Bond bullshit fiction. You piss someone off as many times as you've done me there are gonna be serious fucking consequences. You really should be thanking me."  
  
"Th--thanking you—"Kim heard that clearly, struggled to rise again and stared at her incredulously, "for destroying lives? You have to be stopped!"  
  
Shego leaned inward, utilized gravity and punched down hard into the left cheek of Kim. A line of blood shot out of her mouth upon the echoed contact, and she slumped down.  
  
"No, you're no longer permitted to speak," Shego calmly added. "And I'm done explaining myself."  
  
Kim was far too exposed and injured. She had difficulty in the search for cover but she had to find a way to quickly regroup and recoup. Then she remembered her grappling hook. "So what are you gonna do Shego; kill everyone in sight to teach me a lesson?"  
  
"No, now that you've come, I just wanna kill you, albeit very, very slowly," Shego said through gritted teeth. "Got a problem with that?"  
  
"Actually, I do," Kim removed her grappling gun from her belt and aimed it directly at Shego.  
  
"Please! I can dodge a motherfucking bullet! What could you hope to accomplish with that?"  
  
Kim squinted and her knowing smile was smudged with blood, but it sent a message as she then aimed the grappler behind her. The hook shot far away and latched onto a part of the ceiling. The line speedily and horizontally pulled her upward and away from Shego.  
  
"Possible! Get back here you cunt!" It was a primal rage and death scream at her enemy.  
  
Kim smirked and saw how smaller Shego had become both physically and figuratively. Even though Kim was still in pain, she mustered parting words.  
  
"Catch me if you can!" 


	4. Round 4

**CNN Breaking Story**  
  
Announcer : "Here's Paula Zahn."  
  
Anchor In studio: "Continuing our coverage of the hostage crisis in Paramus, NJ, we have learned from authorities that the assailant in question is Shego, real name unknown. This woman has been known to be associated with Drew Lipski a.k.a. Dr. Drakken, international terrorist."  
  
An undisclosed location; Dr. Drakken, torn between his hatred of both females, switched off the monitor.  
  
"Maybe they'll both kill each other," the blue-faced man muttered.  
  
Anchor: "We have also been informed this woman had escaped from Ryker's Island Penitentiary in New York, having murdered a guard and evaded detection by wearing the guard's clothing."  
  
Middleton High School; the students blankly stared at classroom monitors. Their resident hero was in the most extreme of dangers.  
  
Anchor: "S.W.AT. officers had entered the mall but have neither returned nor further reported, and are now believed to be hostages or killed, but there is no confirmation of either status. There is also a young self- employed crime fighter named Kimberly Ann Possible within the edifice and has taken it upon herself to confront Shego. There is no current word on the status of the girl, the officers or the hostages."  
  
The Possible residence; having seen the coverage, Kim's father rushed home to find his wife sobbing on the couch. They sat together in each other's arms while they helplessly viewed the events occurred on the screen.  
  
Paramus, NJ.  
  
Kim temporarily evicted herself from danger, but Shego's venomous words still permeated her very psyche. Several yards away, she landed on level two, abandoned her grappling gun and limped away to cover.  
  
Suddenly, only a few feet parallel to Kim, short bursts of green flames furiously struck the ceiling. There was no denying the brimstone and ammonia acridity, Shego was projecting her flame powers again.

"Holy fucking shit," Kim whispered it in reluctant awe, clumped forward, and considered herself lucky Shego could not yet see her. She stopped at the sight ahead of a moving pair of legs protruding from the CVS Pharmacy entrance. Having reached them, the teen girl saw that it was a S.W.A.T. officer laid face down.  
  
"Oh, thank God. He's alive." She turned him over, then gasped aloud at his current appearance. On the entire left half of his torso and face his helmet, gear and uniform were melted, grafted into his skin.  
  
"P-please," the officer was barely intelligible. "Help me!"  
  
"I'm gonna get you out of here! You'll be okay," Though based on his looks, she questioned her own assurance. "Where are the hostages?"  
  
"She's—she's insane! She's gonna kill us all!"  
  
"Officer, please..."  
  
Suddenly, Kim's back was pounded with intense heat and she shrieked in pain. A large part of her black uniform-shirt melted away, but also a large part of her flesh charred to a color of gray. She leapt into the pharmacy to take cover.  
  
Shego stood several yards away from that entrance to the CVS. Her hands were aglow with flames which in other hands would be considered beautiful.  
  
"I'm not gonna play The Most Dangerous Game with you in here," she said while she strolled forward. "That energy field; I redesigned it so that it would compress when I want it to."  
  
Kim was in an aisle with diapers, ripped open a bag and used a few to absorb the excess blood. The store was large and she heard how Shego was relatively far away. So she covertly but quickly ducked into an aisle with aspirins.  
  
"Did you fucking hear me, Kimmie?' Shego yelled as she neared the entrance. "If you continue playing hide and seek I'm gonna squish the grandparents and housewives into loser stew!"  
  
Shego saw the live officer on the floor of the store and lifted him by the lapels. She traced his face with her clawed hand, grabbed his chin and twisted his head. A loud snap resonated and the now deceased man was discarded by her. "That's about as merciful as I'll get this day, Possible!"  
  
Kim popped open a childproof cap, chugged about ten or so pills and chased them with a swig from a Pepsi bottle. The proverbial light bulb went off over her head after she felt the weight of the one-liter bottle.  
  
Shego's fuse dwindled. "You have three seconds to decide...One...two...th—"  
  
Suddenly, a shower of plastic bottles, toys, garbage pails, and the rest of the inventory of the CVS was flung toward villainess.  
  
"What the fuck is this?" Shego slapped aside the incoming debris. "This nonsense is your God damn answer?'  
  
She fired up her claws and flame-zapped the random projectiles. This continued for twenty seconds before she concluded, "I've had enough of this shit!"  
  
Kim read that comment as her open, found a bottle of isopropyl alcohol, wrapped it in paper towels and chucked toward the entrance. Since so many harmless objects were previously incoming, Shego aimed and fired. The bottle exploded and spewed ignited fluid in her direction.  
  
Shego let out a most ragged yell as the inflamed contents splashed all over her. That was Kim's second beacon. She saw how Shego fervently patted out the flames and rubbed her eyes, so she made a beeline toward the incapacitated villainess.  
  
Kim used extra momentum from the charge, shouldered Shego's midsection, knocked some wind out of her and smacked her hard into the railing. Kim reached back, sent a solid right fist into her jaw and drew blood. Shego, still recovering from the fire, staggered to her right from the blow, which provided a third beacon for Kim.  
  
The teen hero leapt inward and consistently slammed her fists, elbows and feet left and right into Shego's face, neck, and jaw. The hits reached double-digits, but the convicted criminal had not relented.  
  
"Fall! God damn you, **fall**!" Kim yelled in the midst of her attack.  
  
But where Kim only had her physical strength, her enemy had added hatred and better hearing. Shego inexplicably recovered, snatched Kim by the front of the shirt, and swiftly tossed her over the ledge toward the mall's main floor.  
  
Kim Possible was a cheerleader. She always had the ability to land on her feet, and even if she had not, she knew how to land without true injury. Today, this landing already had a serious-injury-asterisk on it. The girl screamed during her rapid descent and thumped extremely hard onto a roof of a new automobile on display. Her burnt back took the brunt of the fall, and her impact indented the roof and slightly cracked the windshield.  
  
"Who do you think you are, you fucking slut?" Shego called from above then leapt down to greet Kim.  
  
Kim struggled to remain conscious as she uttered a tapered groan while laid upright on the roof parallel to the car's length, her head near the windshield. Shego landed atop the car hood then leaned over Kim to say something.  
  
"I'm gonna kill you so dead, the worms are gonna bid for your corpse on Ebay."


	5. Round 5

*So fifteen minutes ago, Paramus, NJ, mall parking lot.  
  
Ron Stoppable, sidekick to Kim Possible, was trussed up in a squad car. Due to a tiny pair of paws that batted his face, he slowly regained consciousness.  
  
"Wake up, wake up, wake up!" Rufus the intelligent mole rat chanted.  
  
Ron exclaimed, "Someone get the number of that truck?"  
  
His limbs were shackled behind him. He laid belly down on the back seat and faced his beloved pet. "Rufus, Kim needs my help. See if you can find keys to get me out of here!"  
  
Rufus anxiously nodded and skittered to the front seat. But as he reached that area, a computer screen blipped and suddenly Wade, the ten year-old super genius, appeared. The mole rat was shocked to see him.  
  
"Rufus, is Ron there?" Wade asked.  
  
"Wade?" Ron clearly heard him.  
  
"Ron, Where are you? I can't see you," Wade said.  
  
"I'm hogtied in the back se—wait a minute, how did you find me?"  
  
"Duh, I saw your little display on CNN."  
  
"I was on CNN? Cool!"  
  
As the two minors bantered, Rufus found a set of keys to unlock the shackles that held Ron in place. He scooted back to his owner and picked at the locks that bound him.  
  
"Listen carefully, Ron. I discovered an abnormal energy pattern at the Garden State Plaza. Not only that, but it's also exhibiting variant temperatures indicative of body heat."  
  
"You do realize that I have no idea what you just said between 'Listen carefully, Ron' and 'body heat," right?" Ron asked while Rufus twisted the key to unlock the cuffs.  
  
Wade exhaled sharply, "I think the hostages are imprisoned by some energy cage, and it looks like it can compress and kill them!"  
  
"Can't you hit some button on your computer and get 'em out?" Ron was reluctant to get smacked by a cop again.  
  
"No," was Wade's simple answer.  
  
"What can I do?" Ron sighed before his wrists were freed and Rufus cheered.  
  
"Grab a walkie-talkie and earpiece and I'll get you inside the mall," Wade instructed. "We'll find the hostages and you have to free them."  
  
"Damn." Ron stared down at Rufus who looked up at him sullenly. This was not the time to be hesitant. His best friend, whom he dearly loved, risked her life for him and others. There was no way he should behave any differently than she did, especially not at his moment. It was time for Ron Stoppable to step up to the plate, so he climbed into the front seat and took a spare radio.  
  
"I've already got its frequency," Wade said.  
  
"How can I get in there without the cops hammering me again?'  
  
Wade fervently tapped his keyboard, and summoned a satellite video of the parking lot. "There's a manhole cover directly next to the squad car. I'll call up the Paramus Public Works for a schematic of the sewer system.'  
  
"Sewer system?" Ron's eyes widened.  
  
"Yuck!" Rufus squeaked.  
  
*So right now, Garden State Plaza.  
  
Kim felt Shego's hot breath over her. Every bone, muscle and sinew in the teen's body excruciatingly ached on top of aches, and she could barely stay alert and awake while laid atop the busted car.  
  
"There won't be enough counselors at your high school to help your fellow students get over your death," Shego growled, and interlocked her clawed fingers through Kim's long red hair. "You're not gonna win this one, Possible."  
  
To Kim, Shego sounded like she was outside of a pool while Kim was completely immersed. "H-hey, Shego," Kim said with a raspy tone. "I h- have something for you, a parting gift."  
  
"My definition of 'parting gift' has only one entry," Shego chuckled menacingly, moved to millimeters close to Kim's face, and then whispered, "Your pants always did hang enticingly low."  
  
Kim found a burst of strength, pulled a can of aerosol roach spray from her pocket and jetted a long burst of the contents directly into the villain's eyes. The evildoer screamed when the chemical contacted her corneas.  
  
In a sudden feat of strength, Kim loudly kyu'ed and blindly pushed a clenched fist directly towards the sound of Shego's scream. Kim solidly connected with the base of her jaw and sent the pale skinned killer off the hood and hard onto the floor.  
  
"Mother...f-fucker!" Shego flailed, clawed at her eyes, and scratched herself in the process.  
  
In moments, Kim slumped towards the driver-side of the car, slid in, sat down, and yanked out the base of the steering column. She could barely focus, as if she were moving through a giant vat of petroleum jelly. But she saw green. Green meant go.  
  
A few strokes of exposed wires sparked the engine to life. Shego heard the engine roar, but regained her sight to see Kim behind the wheel.  
  
Kim shifted the gears and spun the tires. After a stare-down that Old West cowboys would envy, Kim let the brake loose and zoomed toward her foe. Shego, shocked by this turn of events, took a hard slam from the incoming vehicle. But she sank her claws into the metallic hood and hung on.  
  
Kim sped through the narrow walkway at about forty miles an hour, but it was a long mall. She deliberately crashed into kiosks and caused their debris to strike the murderess.  
  
Shego up righted herself to face the reckless driver, smashed her left claw it through the windshield and was going to fire a burst of flame, but Kim swerved and redirected her shot. Unfortunately, the flame grazed Kim's right shoulder.  
  
Kim took a hand off the wheel, snatched Shego's wrist and flailed her arm into the stalactite-like shards of the hole. Her vocal reaction to the pain was spine jarring.  
  
"You want a piece of me? HUH?" Kim drunkenly hollered as the vehicle reached fifty and approached a dead-end. "Not on your miserable fucking life would you get my ass!"  
  
After a while, Kim had no choice but to hit the brakes, as the turn would have been extremely difficult. The brakes were applied; the car skidded and crashed into a "YOU ARE HERE" sign. Shego's claw betrayed her as the 50MPH momentum flew her through a Hot Topic store. The crash was nearly deafening.  
  
After she took a moment and caught her breath, in an adrenalin-induced rejuvenation Kim leapt from the side-straddled car, passenger side facing the store. Hot Topics are usually small in area space, but Kim still could not see her enemy within it.  
  
The teen girl cautiously entered. The killer was always stealthy, so Kim thought, but how much so in this cramped space? Kim was in the middle of the store near the damaged checkout counter; no Shego in sight. But then it dawned upon her.  
  
The ceiling.  
  
Kim jutted her head upward, too late. Within a few seconds, the white- skinned, raven-tressed maniac swooped down then scraped her claws into Kim's burnt and bruised back. Her fulminated cry of agony was heard by the officers outside. Shego then booted the base of her spine, an act which sent Kim careening into clothes racks.  
  
Kim dropped to her knees after the collision, but then through glazed vision saw belts on display. She moved forward like sludge but quickly snatched a leather belt. Shego saw what Kim was doing a fired a flame at her reaching arm and scored a hit.  
  
Kim squealed but tried to concentrate and switched whipping hands. With her left hand she blindly flipped the belt buckle toward the woman and caught her face with it. A bullet of blood shot from her cheek.  
  
"I let you have that lucky shot, cuntbag," Shego said, and also grabbed a large leather belt, then wrapped it tightened it around the neck of Kim.  
  
The teen was unsure of what just happened but realized she now had breathing trouble. Instinctively, she erratically thrashed them both around the room and tried to buy her own life some time. For some reason, Kim figured Shego was more hurt than she let on, since Kim was severely injured and choking to death, and still forcibly guided her all over the place.  
  
The metal and glass checkout counter was split in half and exposed were its knives and swords display. Kim already knew the Hot Topic franchise had these items and motioned herself toward them, but Shego would not relent.  
  
Kim could barely hold out, and summoned her weakening legs to push her cranium into Shego's nose. The woman felt the skull collide and she slightly loosened the grip.  
  
Kim used that split second, seized a fancy dagger from the counter, flipped it around, and jammed the blade into the right thigh of Shego. Her scream was as loud as Kim's was earlier.  
  
Kim Possible turned around, wheezed as she removed the belt, and kicked the dazed criminal's gut. The impact sent her spilling out of the store.  
  
The teen dropped to her knees and her gasps for oxygen alone would have deeply sympathized any present witness. Kim was losing her grip on reality, despite Shego's claim to show her said reality.  
  
*So moments ago, Outside, Parking lot.  
  
From a hundred or so yards away, Special Agent Phillips, heard the second female scream but as faint. For a split second, he almost called reinforcements in. The middle-aged agent's mind flashed to an image of his daughter, and what he would do to keep her safe.  
  
There was too much at stake to risk the lives of the hostages and Kim was in fact a volunteer. She consistently took these risks and he reluctantly accepted. He let her in, but that didn't mean he had to like it.  
  
Every officer worked in shifts but had always been on the alert. However, their focus on the mall had been the detriment to watching Ron, whom they assumed was shackled in a squad car. An officer with a good memory passed by the car where Ron was, and now was not.  
  
"Special Agent Phillips," he yelled. "The blonde kid is gone!"  
  
"What? How the hell did he--?" Phillips stopped. They could not even comb the area for him. The decorated agent could only say one thing.  
  
"Son of a bitch, now I may lose two children today." 


	6. Round 6

*So two months ago, an undisclosed location.  
  
Dr. Drakken used to be one of the foremost, brilliant minds of the twentieth century. Now, he was an unsuccessful, blue-skinned super-villain. He cackled at one of his greatest creations, an energy cage.  
  
"Behold, Shego, for this is going to keep Kim Possible at bay while the Statue of Liberty becomes my willing slave," he gloated.  
  
His hire was playing solitaire while he droned on and on about this invention, but this comment woke her up. "'Keep Kim Possible at bay?' What the fuck, Drakken; the best action to keep her at bay is to waste her!"  
  
"Well—uh, yeah," he stammered. "Of course I'm going to waste her, once I animate the Statue of Liberty!"  
  
"You asshole," she groaned. "She's a fucking athletic cheerleader. Even if you do make the statue walk, she won't be an easy target for it to stomp on!"  
  
"Well, hey, now whose plan is this?" Drakken defensively asked. "When you develop a genius plan like mine you can opine all you like. Until then, earn your salary by shutting the hell up!"  
  
Shego did such, but also closely observed his demonstration of the energy cage and made some mental notes of her own.  
  
*So today, Paramus sewers,  
  
Ronald Stoppable held both a flashlight and his nose, for he was knee deep in muck and mire. His guide was a ten year-old mega-genius known to him by the name of Wade. The tunnels were dark, damp and rancid smelling. Ron momentarily questioned his means of travel, but thoughts of the turmoil his best friend endured made him press on.  
  
"Wade how much longer do I have to go here," Ron said while Rufus covered his tiny nose. "Wade? Wade, come on dude, stay with me here!"  
  
Wade had boosted the signal of the radio to compensate for the underground surroundings, but it still fizzled out. The youngster's answer came disjointed.  
  
"Shit, looks like we're on our own little buddy," Ron declared to Rufus, "unless there's any way you can talk to your cousins down here? Maybe they can give us some directions."  
  
Rufus seemed insulted by Ron's insinuation that he was related to a sewer rat, and crossed his little forelegs.  
  
*Garden State Plaza, near a Hot Topic store.  
  
Kimberly Ann Possible felt her heart pound in her chest, and it was all that reminded her that she was alive. Her back had turned every color of the spectrum. Her chest felt like she inhaled uncooked spaghetti strands. Her entire face and skull felt like they were pressed by a vice. Her entire right forearm was blackened like a roasted orange. Her uncooked skin trickled of dried and fresh blood. Ironically, Kim felt cold; so damn cold.  
  
Kim's torn shirt hung by a thread, and she was nearly topless. She grabbed long sleeved shirts, forsook their sizes and tugged them on.  
  
Shego stood outside of the Hot Topic and saw blood squirting from her thigh. Her teeth grinded in pain and fury, but the gaping dagger wound was too large for her to continue moving. She flamed up her right claw, pushed it against the wound, and after some crackling and sizzling she cauterized it.  
  
"Your behavior only makes me ANGRIER!!!!!" Shego echoed, and deeply breathed like a lioness hunting a young gazelle. The young gazelle emerged suddenly and swiftly, and prompted Shego to go on the defensive.  
  
"Where...are...the...God...damn...hostages?!" Kim's voice sounded as if she had gargled sand but was quite audible. She pushed ahead and tackled Shego head-on. Kim's evil foe smiled and simply pounded her shoulders.  
  
Kim dropped like a sack of potatoes, but then played dirty. With a left swing she judo chopped where she stabbed Shego.  
  
The villainess growled, clutched her thigh and stumbled back. Kim staggered to behind the momentarily distracted woman, grabbed a fistful of her long, dark hair, and with a roar yanked her into a glass window of a Modell's sporting goods store. Shego's impact cracked the glass, she slid down and landed on her skull, and her neck twisted.  
  
"This--this is ridiculous," she uttered as she stumbled to her feet.  
  
"No, it's reality, remember?"  
  
Kim had neither heard nor seen all that much at this moment. Everything she had done was instinctive and on pure adrenalin, including what she was about to do right now. As numb as she was, as nauseous as she felt, and as scarred as her body was, she sprinted towards the color green; an even more furious tackle into the cracked window shattered the glass into bits and sent them both careening through the Modell's.  
  
Shego landed with a loud crack into a display of jerseys and Kim had briefly stumbled into the shards on the floor.  
  
"Yeah, couldn't dodge that could you, you animal!" Kim loudly slurred. "A ninety-eight pound bullet just shot your bony ass!"  
  
"Fucker, I hate you so much."  
  
However muffled Kim's hearing was she perfectly understood the inflection, and said, "Yeah; right back at you."  
  
Ron always loved going to a Modell's but Kim usually hated it. At least his sports knowledge educated her in many ways. Kim stood up and trudged over to aluminum baseball bats on display on the north side of the store. Shego also quickly arose.  
  
"So, you like throwin' shit? YOU LIKE THROWIN' SHIT?!" Shego scooped up handfuls of the glass pieces and chucked them with excessive velocity in Kim's direction. Kim noticed the incoming glitter and barely ducked out of their way, but not before some of them sliced her shoulders, midriff, and hacked off chunks of her blood-encrusted hair.  
  
Kim had not cried out, but was still frightened beyond words. Ruthless, heartless, soul-free, an unexpected attack: these were words that swam in her mind. Hard baseball bat: three more words that needed to be focused on a lot more. She was on the floor, but with medium speed stood again to motion toward the bats.  
  
Shego noticed the destination of aluminum bats, fired up her hands and expended an excessive discharge of green fire at them. The flames incinerated the display and the aluminum bats were made too hot to touch.  
  
Kim stared at the steaming, glowing bats, and took on a defeatist demeanor.  
  
"Where you are right now is closer to death," Shego announced to Kim. "I welcome your fight, but no matter how much you try, you won't live."  
  
It sounded like blah, blah, blah to Kim Possible, but the tone was there, and she despised it. Kim continued a limp towards the bats. She profusely sweated from the emanating heat of the metal, as if she were housed inside a pizza oven. She reached for a bat, her palms wrapped around its handle and the scalding metal loudly seared the skin.  
  
"You've got brass balls, cheerleader. I'll grant you that," Shego said with genuine impression.  
  
Kim had not screamed from the pain. But what she did do was quickly lunge into a full assault just as Shego voiced her offhanded compliment.  
  
She hated being on the offensive from the suddenly resurgent Kim, who lifted and thrust the bat at her enemy. Shego dodged but the first strong hit was from the barrel of the bat to her left shoulder.  
  
Kim followed-through right handed and hit Shego on the left side of her jaw. This hit ejected blood and teeth from her mouth and rotated her.  
  
"Ya like my impression of A-Rod?" Kim quipped and slammed the bat very hard onto the ex-heroine's back. The thud resonated throughout the mall. Kim sent several more thunderous bangs to the dorsum of Shego. The villainess vocally reacted to each blow.  
  
Blood seeped through Shego's jumpsuit, collected on the bat and left a trail in the air on every lift.  
  
"GO...DOWN!" Kim screamed after the eighth grand slam.  
  
"No," was her calm yet strained-sounding refusal. Within seconds, the woman faced Kim. Her right claw was not even pre-flamed when she projected the widest, largest fire of the morning towards her arch-nemesis. The tremendous, accelerated incendiary shot completely engulfed Kim's weapon, as well as traced a tunnel throughout the rest of the mall all the way outside to the south parking lot. Most of the aluminum bat was liquefied.  
  
Again, the teen heroine dropped to her knees and blankly stared, in complete and silent shock.  
  
Kim Possible's right thumb was obliterated as well.  
  
Kim clutched where her digit used to be. It had neither bled, nor excessively hurt. But the shock of losing a body part was overwhelming.  
  
Shego arched her head in mock sorrow. "You had it coming, Kimmie. Your little baseball histrionics were giving you a sense of superiority. It was—"she coughed, hacked, and spit a large wad of saliva and blood—"it was egotistical of you."  
  
Like earlier this morning, the killer circled the stationary, knelt Kim. Shego side-booted Kim directly into her mouth, and the impact jerked the teen onto the floor. Kim's back already resembled stirred Jell-O, so the landing sounded like wet paper towels landing on a bale of hay.  
  
"Ooh, that had to—"Shego spit out more blood, "—had to hurt!"  
  
"You're a....shitty actor," Kim gurgled while she rolled to her side.  
  
Shego stalled her prowl. "Beg pardon?"  
  
"You...are a shitty...motherfuckin'...actor. Not all—"she coughed up blood as well, and stifled back tears nonetheless. "The red fluid on the floor no longer belongs to just me or those cops."  
  
Shego punted Kim in her stomach and it was augmented because of the lacerations. Kim's grunt started out as pained and ended as semi-crying.  
  
"Notice that much of this reverse-psychology shit had failed with me this morning," Shego mentioned as she stepped back and prepared another assault.  
  
"So it seems." Kim composed herself, coughed again and spit blood.  
  
The teen heroine pushed up to her knees, her eyes were clamped shut, her teeth clenched hard, and she still clutched the burnt stump where her thumb was. Shego was stunned as she saw this display and momentarily neglected her goal.  
  
"Then how about this—"Kim buzzed out.  
  
If an orchestra were to augment this moment, the musical arrangement would swell, flourish and crescendo while Kim Possible slowly rose to her feet. She still had minimal eyesight and hearing, barely kept her balance, and swayed ever so much.  
  
But her brain, although seriously impaired, was functional enough to allow Kim to verbally conclude this next thought clearly and steadfastly.  
  
"I...am...going to *kill* you." 


	7. Round 7

*So three months ago, an undisclosed location.  
  
Dr. Drakken had an idea. He set down a work print that outlined his latest scheme in front of his employee Shego.  
  
"Behold Shego, for this will be my ultimate masterpiece," Drakken gushed.  
  
The female hire rolled her eyes while she perused a crossword puzzle. "Hey Doctor, what's a four letter word for 'I don't give a flying fuck?'"  
  
"Hmm, your indifference will change once you witness the Statue of Liberty rampaging at my command," he boldly stated.  
  
She calmly set down the newspaper and stared at the oblique technology illustrated on the large sheet of paper. She then took a hard glance at her employer. "Okay, I'll despise myself in the morning, but this one I must hear."  
  
"This device will animate any inanimate object that was built in man's image," he proudly announced. "What better object of control than one of the largest in the world."  
  
"Well why not go for the huge Jesus statue in Rio?" Shego asked.  
  
"Too religious; anyway, my device will enable the statue to generate usable limbs from their fixed structure, making them virtually alive!"  
  
"You cannot be serious about this," the clawed woman groaned.  
  
"I'm as serious as a fat man's heart attack, Shego," Drakken answered her doubt.  
  
"You watched Ghostbusters 2 recently haven't you?" She challenged him.  
  
Drakken only grimaced at her question, gathered up his plans and marched away from her. Shego menacingly smirked.  
  
*So today, sewers.  
  
Ron Stoppable harrowingly trekked through the smelly, dampening river of sewage in the hopes that he would be able to help his best friend Kim Possible. Unfortunately, his ten-year old guide, super-genius Wade, could not boost the signal of the radio in use, and Ron was on his own. Because of the stench, Ron retched on every few steps, and Rufus had to duck into his pocket to avoid the spewing vomit.  
  
"I swear to God we're going in circles Rufus," Ron snorted as he sloshed on.  
  
Rufus popped his head out of Ron's pants pocket and suddenly got a whiff of a familiar scent. The little mole rat recognized the odor, crawled up on to the shoulder of his master, and tugged on his ear.  
  
"Hey, hey easy on the lobes little guy."  
  
"Bueno Nacho, Bueno Nacho, Bueno Nacho," Rufus chattered out.  
  
"Now is not the time for snackage, Rufus," Ron scolded. "Kim's in danger!"  
  
"No, no, no," Rufus said, and pointed at a ladder just up ahead.  
  
Ron reached the ladder that led to the surface. "What is it; you're saying we should go up there?"  
  
Rufus nodded in agreement, "Uh-huh, u-huh, u-huh!"  
  
"Well, better to go up than stay in this hell hole." Ron had begun a climb up the rungs toward the circular cover. After a lengthy scale, he pushed through into the light. While the light momentarily hurt his eyes, he gasped deeply for the fresh air.  
  
He emerged into one of several loading docks in the mall, and realized that his trip was not for naught. Loading palettes, trucks and forklifts were unmanned and there was not a human in sight.  
  
"We're in the mall?" Ron said. "We're in the mall!"  
  
While Rufus jumped for joy, the radio crackled to life with Wade's voice, "Ron, Ron come in!"  
  
Ron tapped the earpiece/microphone button to transmit, "Wade, to where the holy fuckin' hell did you disappear?"  
  
"Hey I did my best to maintain the signal," Wade said. "Are you inside the mall yet?"  
  
"Highly likely, I think Rufus smelled a Bueno Nacho and led me here."  
  
"I had no idea his olfactory senses were that acute."  
  
"Neither did I, Mr. Wizard," Ron said. "Now are we gonna find the hostages or not?"  
  
"Yeah, I've still got the energy cage's coordinates."  
  
As Ron meandered towards the main shopping area, a female shape traipsed through the iron rafters above, and stalked its prey.  
  
*Opposite end of the mall.  
  
For the first time in her crime fighting career, Kim Possible threatened another person's life. She was unsure why she said it, and barely was aware she even spoke, but it could not be taken back at this point. Kim and Shego stared each other down inside the Modell's.  
  
"Nice words, Kimmie, worthy of me," Shego said, then spit out bits of skin. "But no matter what you say, no matter how hard you try, you—"  
  
Kim stood near a rack of metal barbells; with a sudden and unexpected flash she snatched up a ten pound one with her left hand and jolted towards Shego. The villainess met her attack and veered inward. Their collision was tempestuous, and prompted them both to grunt aloud. Shego wrapped her arms around Kim's thin waist, and forced ahead toward an intact pane of glass of the store.  
  
They penetrated the glass, which rained over them like a waterfall. The shards slit open Kim's forehead, and blood began to pour into her eyes, but she still retained the weight in her left hand. However, she also felt the start of Shego's flame power, and given her current position, this range could instantaneously kill her.  
  
Kim pounded her weight-assisted fist into the right of her attacker's skull. The two of them bumped into a small wooden kiosk, and some splinters stuck into Kim's razed back. But Kim pounded and pounded and pounded, with both Shego's and Kim's blood trickling down the bad girl's ear. The grip finally loosened and Kim, who was slightly propped atop the kiosk, pushed her away with her legs.  
  
As Shego staggered back, Kim still retained the barbell and said, "My best friend is a pro-wrestling fan, stupid. I started paying attention!"  
  
Kim's timing was off, due to the loss of her right thumb and additional injuries. She aimed for her nose. She had instead used the weight to augment a punch to her brow. Shego veered back several meters and slid across the smooth floor.  
  
"You're reign of terror has to end, Shego," was her decree. "It's you who should die tonight, not me."  
  
Shego was laid face up, her legs faced Kim, and she lifted her head. She wiped off the mixed blood that was smeared on her face, stared at where the claw was stained and licked it off.  
  
"Ugh, that is *so* gross," Kim said in true KP fashion.  
  
And then, Shego begun the very same laughter that prefaced this whole battle had resonated throughout the mall again.  
  
"You're not me," Shego said. "I'll admit I was slightly taken aback by your whole—" A guttural heave and red chunks were regurgitated on the front her jumpsuit, "—the whole 'I'll kill you' comment. But you're not me. Do you wanna know why?"  
  
"No," Kim tersely answered.  
  
Shego chuckled and then said, "Well, you fucking bitch, I'll tell you anyway."  
  
All this time Shego had been intently staring at the kiosk they bumped into. Helium balloons were tied to it, and Kim noticed a glint of silver at its base. Kim curiously leaned back and notice a pressurized tank of helium, and then noticed Shego firing up her claws. Her eyes widened as she began a diminished run away from it.  
  
The fire began to swell within her claws, and even her eyes had green flits of fire. She expended a line of fire at the kiosk and it shot through the wood and onto the pressurized container.  
  
It caused a gigantic, spherical explosion of fire, smoke and debris. The detonation shuddered and crumbled the foundation of the mall.  
  
Shego climbed to her feet and the completion of her thought had manifested itself to the next sentence.  
  
"Because I'm fuckin' RUTHLESS." 


	8. Round 8

Food court.  
  
Ron and Rufus skulked through mall corridors that patrons were normally not permitted to be. They had heard a very loud noise, almost an amplified pop.  
  
"What the hell was that?" Ron cried out.  
  
"I'm reading trace amounts of helium in the west wing of the mall," Wade said over the radio.  
  
"So what does that mean, Einstein?"  
  
"The noise we heard may have been a helium tank detonating or something."  
  
"So what does that...MEAN?"  
  
"It's not flammable. Kim should be safe."  
  
Ron Stoppable had two guides: Rufus, a naked mole rat with a sense of smell attuned to Bueno Nacho, and Wade, a boy-genius who talked Ron through with a radio. Ron pushed through double-doors and right off the bat there was the food court.  
  
"Wade, what floor are we on?" Ron asked.  
  
"Uhh—looks like the first floor on the east wing of the mall," was the distorted radio voice of Wade. "Why, what's the relevance of that?"  
  
"Food courts aren't normally—"Ron shook his head and realized he digressed. "Where's the cage?"  
  
"Veer to your right."  
  
Above in the rafters, dozens more female forms acrobatically meandered.  
  
Ron took several paces between tables and garbage receptacles towards the food stands, all of them were unoccupied. Ron and Rufus had to avoid aromatic distraction of the various fast food delicacies.  
  
"I'm picking up the strongest energy and heat signals." Wade added, "But I'm also reading a separate fluctuating—"  
  
"Yeah, yeah, I wanna know if I found the people, Wade!"  
  
"Keep going."  
  
"I see...something," Ron said after a lengthy walk.  
  
Several more steps later, Ron advanced on a Beuno Nacho stand. The front was flickering, web-like and intangible: part of the energy cage. Within the store were sixty or so people of various ages cramped together. When they saw Ron they hollered and pleaded.  
  
An old lady: "Help us."  
  
Another elderly woman: "Please, get us out of here."  
  
A thirty-something mother of two: "Save my babies. Oh God, please!"  
  
Etc, etc, etc.  
  
Ron fought back tears. He had never really witnessed about sixty people this fearful for their lives in one sitting. But he discovered an inner strength for them, for Kim.  
  
"Where is Shego?" Ron randomly asked.  
  
The Bueno Nacho manager, whose nameplate read Ahmed, stood up and answered, "We don't know, but they stuck us in here and we can't even touch this thing!"  
  
"'They"" Ron curiously whispered.  
  
"Ron, the cage conformed to the size of the store," Wade analyzed. "It's like the lining of a coat!"  
  
"How the hell do I shut off this lining, Wade?" Ron angrily asked. "These people are scared out of their minds!"  
  
"Okay, you've got to—"Wade paused, "Ron, a second separate energy reading is incoming!"  
  
"What?" Ron was dumbfounded.  
  
"Look out!" Most of the hostages shouted.  
  
With speed and agility, the humanoid, female shapes descended and landed to within meters of Ron and Rufus. Ron spun around and saw them poised to attack.  
  
"Well, where did you ladies come from?" He smoothly asked.  
  
"Ron!" Wade said. "Remember the Liberty Island incident?"  
  
"I don't think I have time to, Wade!" Ron said, and then more closely analyzed the forty "women" in front of him. "Oh, my God, no wonder they're all...perfect!"  
  
They were mannequins, and they were animated.  
  
Filene's.  
  
_Sing rutabagas._  
  
Kim sprawled in the underwear section of the store. She eluded the explosion once she activated her rocket-boot-blades to speedily escape.  
  
_I can't see. Who am I? What did she do to me? No mannequins. They can't save us._  
  
Her boots were designed for only one-thrust-per-use, and her rapidity left her straddled in the entrance to the Filene's. Her senses were shattered, so she was fortunate enough to have even crawled, let alone steer herself there. A path of her blood was smeared through the store.  
  
_Hurts; numb; red; Where am I? Oh...yeah, Jersey; damn this state sucks ass. 'Miller's Crossing;' that's a great movie. Oh, man, this hurts. My back; my back not solid anymore?_  
  
She pulled a few pairs of underwear off a shelf and dabbed her eyes. Even a few slight wipes drenched the cloth with her blood.  
  
_Wow, I didn't think I had that much in me. Why am I not dead? No, that's negative way to think. I need to decapitate Shego. Sick bitch; sick's too small a word. Where's my thumb? It's not there; not there! No panic. I can't be that hurt if I'm still breathing. I think._  
  
She deeply inhaled but then roughly coughed.  
  
_Okay, so I'm barely breathing. I kissed Ronald today. I kissed him. He has soft lips. I can't feel my face._  
  
She still had her lips, pursed them and touched them to be certain.  
  
_Okay, rutabagas are so not the drama. Those aspirins are never gonna kick in. Who am I? How is this me?  
_  
She lifted her head and noticed the wide trail of blood and skin she left, then passed by mirrors.  
  
_Is that me? Is that _all _me? Drakken's not here; if he cloned that blood. Ears ringing now. I'll try harder. Someone help me._  
  
Having crept throughout most of the establishment, she bumped into a far- end wall. Kim stared upward and saw red, but not the kind of red that she identified with this morning. It was a red fire extinguisher.  
  
_I could use more pressurized shit. Can't hide forever, lives are at stake. Shego's got to go, and then to go is dead. Wait, what the hell am I thinking? Shego's dead and Bonnie's fake tan sucks._  
  
She slapped her thumb-less, blood-coated right hand on the wall to push herself to her feet. As if she were a drunken vagrant, Kim wavered and groaned.  
  
_Shut up, Kimberly! You want her to hear you? You want her to fry you like a corn dog? I've gotta extinguish her fire! Mom, I'm sorry. Ronald, when I get out of intensive care, you are gonna get so lucky. Did I leave the iron on?_  
  
Kim yanked the extinguisher off the mooring and then faced her trail of blood-crumbs.  
  
_My butt's damp. Something's sliding into my pants. Oh, yeah, my back is gelatinous. That a Christmas tree? What is it doing in the middle of the—_  
  
Shego was relatively far away and her trajectory was off, for a projected flame crashed into the wall to Kim's left.  
  
"Holy shit!" Kim summoned her legs to dart her behind a ceiling support.  
  
"I don't know how you got so far Kimmie, but the hostages will be thrilled that I found you," Shego said almost tiredly.  
  
Kim kept the fire extinguisher, and then stared at the watch worn on her left wrist. She exposed herself to Shego, who arched an eyebrow at this seeming surrender. In the walking aisle of the big store, Kim marched with her object towards the bad-girl. They viciously stared each other down.  
  
"Had enough?" Kim mumbled.  
  
"Drop the extinguisher."  
  
Kim tossed it toward her feet, but not far enough for Shego to reach.  
  
"You really suck," Kim uttered. "Are you aware of that?"  
  
"I adore seeing your current appearance this morning, the bloody and broken style," she chuckled. "You make The Passion of the Christ G-rated."  
  
"I'm not Jesus, just your basic average girl," Kim had a miniscule bout of lucidity. "I'm here to save the world."  
  
"You couldn't even save a bunch of loser Jersey cops."  
  
"But I'm saving the hostages."  
  
"You won't."  
  
"You and what army's gonna stop me?"  
  
"That's for me to know, and you to die."  
  
"Doubt it."  
  
Kim quickly lifted and leaned her left wrist forward, tapped her watch/laser weapon, and shot the coherent light beam at the canister. It was too sudden a motion for Shego when the container was perforated and then exploded. The foamed contents splattered onto her cuts. The villainess screamed in pain and staggered.  
  
"I am SICK of CHEMICALS HITTING my FACE!!!!!!!!" She bellowed.  
  
Once again, momentarily blinded, she lashed out like as an animal would and incinerated the clothing store with a furious flame-power discharge. This outburst set ablaze garments and floor-carpets in range.  
  
The sprinkler system was instantly triggered and quenched the flames before they had become dangerous. The water cleared the fire retardant from Shego's eyes. When she regained sight, she saw Kim Possible swung a large metal clothes rack in her direction. It loudly cracked across the cranium of Shego, who fell back in an airborne heap across the store walkway.  
  
Kim tossed aside the rack, jumped atop the felled woman, grabbed her neck and repeatedly slammed her skull into the floor. Although there was some inflicted pain in the high-numbered walloping, the floor was not too hard, and Kim did not retain the momentary lucidity.  
  
She slugged Kim at the base of her jaw, which launched her away from the villainess. Kim fell down into the puddles of water but was not out.  
  
As the artificial tundra continued, Kim staggered up again while her enemy also tried to stand. She left punched Shego's larynx, whose subsequent gasp for air was prominent.  
  
Shego took advantage of Kim's closeness, and hacked at her chest. Her left claws sunk into Kim's left breast; the tips immersed within the soft flesh. Kim's reaction time was far too off to elude this attack and she screamed and panicked. Shego took great delight in this current act, and pushed in harder.  
  
Kim's recourse was to aim and activate her wrist laser toward her abuser. The murderess had been so engrossed in the torture that she had not noticed Kim move. The beam emitted from the watch and struck something.  
  
The something was the left ear of Shego; severed off completely.  
  
To react, Shego removed her claw from Kim, but pieces of breast tissue followed. The scream from both of them was spine-chilling.  
  
Kim footnoted her own scream with, "I—barely have boobs and you almost cut one off?"  
  
Kim clutched her breast, but still spun kicked the distracted villainess to the laser induced injury. This contact caused her to flail back towards the mall walkway. Shego's convulsions were jarring. It was not only due to pain, but also due to that it was Kim who sliced off her ear.  
  
Kim was cleaned off and momentarily awakened by the cold shower. She limped and followed the backtracking villainess, then said a several words that stepped up their battle.  
  
"I just lost a thumb! But you don't hear me bitching, now do you?" 


	9. Round 9

Food Court.  
  
The forty mobile mannequins were aligned like a marching band in a parade. Ron Stoppable was amongst the humans who could not believe their eyes. He stood on the defensive.  
  
"Wade," Ron called out over the radio, "Please tell me how to handle this!"  
  
"I don't know, they seem to function individually," Wade answered. "But they're concurrently powered."  
  
Suddenly, the emotionless objects effortlessly dove upward, and prompted a last second decision from Ron. Every single one of the living dummies was skyward, so Ron sprinted toward where they initially were. Their destination was where Ron had stood, which was by the energy cage, and they three-point landed.  
  
Ron took advantage of this opportunity and flung a metal dining chair at the group. It struck only one dummy, but the momentum sent it into the cage and vaporized it.  
  
"Boo-yah! One down, and...uh...a lot more...to go."  
  
If he didn't know any better, Ron would have admitted he saw anger in the eyes of the once inanimate mannequins. "Dude, I hope these you can handle this with a tap on your keyboard?"  
  
"They're not as complicated as the cage, but it looks like I'll have to shut 'em down all at once," Wade answered. "You'll have to buy me some time."  
  
"All I can afford right now is a Naco," Ron quipped, then muttered, "No royalties from that, incidentally."  
  
"Mmm, Naco!" Rufus said.  
  
The plastic-humanoids barreled towards Ron and Rufus. Ron bounded away atop the dining tables from their charge. The mini-army swarmed like bees and mimicked Ron's means of retreat as a pursuit.  
  
"Oh, come on, I know the ladies find me irresistible, but this is _ridiculous_!"  
  
Ron jumped toward large mustard and ketchup dispensers, snatched them up and pulled off the lids. At the moment he touched the wide-open aisle, he slathered the contents all over the floor.  
  
Ten or so mannequins jumped down from the tables, slipped on the littered food item and could not gain footing. This caused a chain reaction as they banged into each other and brought each other down hard to the floor. The crashing and the viscous fluid shorted out their mobility.  
  
"Boo-yah, the sequel!" Ron cheered, but noticed that the remaining plastic- army wised up to the condiment trap and meandered around the gooey mini- disaster. "Waaaaaaaaaaaade! This is getting hinky!"  
  
As fervent keyboard tapping was heard over the radio, Wade said, "Just give me another minute!"  
  
"If I'm dead you're gonna have plenty of minutes for Christmas!" Ron sprinted in the opposite direction but the mannequins matched his move.  
  
Suddenly, they leapt at him one at a time. Ron surprisingly dodged and parried them, but still squealed like a frightened stuck pig. One of them got in a deep gash to his shoulder. Ron grunted in pain and had to acrobatically leap away; even kicked a few out of his path.  
  
One mannequin tackled him from behind. Rufus popped out of Ron's pocket and rolled far from Ron. Rufus shook his head and looked back on his downed master.  
  
"Rufus, run!" Ron said as he struggled. "Help the hostages!"  
  
Rufus could only sadly stare at Ron being pounded by the mannequins. Ron vigilantly fought back, and even managed to kick a few off of him. No sooner than he knocked them off, more slugged him while he rose to his feet.  
  
Ron knew the cards were stacked against him as he felt punches and kicks striking every exposed part of his body. All of his strike-backs were useless against the fake women that felt no pain.  
  
Blood streamed down his face and Ron had begun to panic.  
  
Opposite end of the mall.  
  
The cold shower momentarily washed Kim clean and cleared her head somewhat. So the teen redhead used this moment to her advantage. Shego, momentarily in shock, covered the orifice that was exposed when her ear cartilage was severed by Kim Possible's wrist laser.  
  
"What's the matter, _Sheegie_," Kim drolly asked. "You can dish it out but you can't _take_ it?" Kim sent her abraded left fist straight into the mouth of the villainess. The blow snapped her head back and she slammed onto the floor.  
  
"You fucking piece of teen shit! "Shego indiscernibly said while she arose. "I'm gonna—"  
  
On the ground was a folding chair, once used by a kiosk worker. Kim grabbed it and repeatedly slammed it atop the head of her enemy.  
  
"You're goin' _down_!" Kim perfectly imitated Ron's favorite grappler, The Pain King, as the blows reached twelve times.  
  
And Shego started to maniacally laugh again.  
  
"This is so not funny," Kim responded, then plowed the top of the chair to her ribs. A few loud snaps were heard.  
  
Shego rolled onto her back, which still seeped blood from the baseball bat barrage. She rose to her feet and coughed up red fluids a little bit at a time.  
  
"No, this—this is fucking hilarious," She answered with a blood stained smile, casually pointed her right index finger and shot a beamlike green flame at Kim's left wrist. It struck the watch laser which exploded on Kim's wrist. This was the least injured part of her body, but now a burnt crevice was on the top of her wrist. Kim shrieked, dropped the chair, and grasped the wound.  
  
The green-clothed woman impaled Kim's right shoulder with a second narrow green beam. The resulting second scream was louder, piercing and fluttering.  
  
Kim was thrust back from the impact, and retreated towards the death-filled section of the mall, if only to regroup. Somehow Shego leapt high into the air, screamed through her own agony, somersaulted and landed her heels into her flogged, jellied and now ventilated back. The strike caused a loud squish and it caused Kim to fall forward. Her left breast was torn, so the whole fall was doubly and excruciatingly painful.  
  
Shego quickly stepped inward to the felled Kim. But Kim's steadfastness was her anchor, as the crime fighter kicked and contacted between her legs. It distracted rather than hurt. So Kim took the split second and rammed her boot soles into the woman's knees. While Shego fell to the floor, Kim executed a faux break-dance spin and faced her enemy while they were both floored.  
  
Kim quickly straddled the recovering Shego. As her own blood dripped on the bad-girl's face, Kim pressed her left thumb into her right eye and plowed her ribs with her no-thumbed right fist. Shego wailed like a trapped coyote, but enflamed her right claw and clutched Kim's left wrist. Kim's eyes teared-up, and her teeth could have become powdered with clenching, but she continued to pound her ribs.  
  
Kim had to remove her thumb from her socket. Shego grabbed a fistful of Kim's red tresses, stood up, lifted and spun Kim like a lasso, and then released. Kim's limp body arched high and then boisterously crashed into an intact kiosk full of DVDs.  
  
Kim lightly groaned. Some bone of hers broke before the landing, though. As she stirred amongst the broken plastic and wood, she had become aware of what was broken:  
  
Her jaw.  
  
Shego tossed her a long distance, but Kim was not going anywhere anytime soon. A few moments passed, and Shego limped up to the heroine.  
  
"Hitting me over and over, with bats and chairs and fists; you're—you're a redundant little fucker, aren't you?" She coughed up blood. "Yeah, you're full of drama."  
  
"So...not the drama," Kim's mouth barely moved as she said it, as her eyes stared into space. Injuries atop injuries culminated in this moment, as a concussed and barely coherent Kim laid amongst splintered wood and plastic Kung-Fu DVDS.  
  
Shego pulled Kim up by her torn shirts, punched her jaw, pulled her up again, and back-handed her.  
  
"I wanna hear you scream for mercy, Possible," she coldly requested, while she continued her personal violence.  
  
"I...so will not," she squeaked.  
  
At this point Kim's face was cut, bruised, swollen, and bore a wet, crimson mask that streamed-off from every Shego thunder-punch.  
  
"Say it, Possible," the villainess growled, punched again, and repeated, "**Say**...**it**!"  
  
Kim was in the tunnel, where the light begged her for a permanent residence. These beatings, this abuse, should not have been. They are not how we identify with Kim Possible, a cheerleader, not a warrior; a savior, not a soldier.  
  
The teen whimpered something inaudible to her attacker.  
  
"What?" Shego asked.  
  
Kim turned up her volume a bit. "I said, 'Go..._fuck_...yourself!'" Then she spit a wad of red saliva in her face.  
  
"I do it all the time, Kimmie," She said after a chuckle, and traced Kim's lips with her claw. "You should try it, maybe then you'd have something better to do than—"  
  
All of a sudden, Shego's head jolted up as if she were alerted. She discarded Kim like a used candy-wrapper, turned away from her, and said:  
  
"No, NO! You have GOT to be kiddin' me!" 


	10. Round 10

Sixteen years ago.  
  
Nurse: "She's fully dilated!"  
  
Pediatrician: "Okay Sela, we need you to push really hard this time!"  
  
Nicholas Phillips: "Come on dear, you can do it!"  
  
The young woman squinted like she never squinted before. It was her first child, after all. Sela Phillips had endured several hours of labor, and the stress of her first childbirth began to take its toll as she laid in the stirrups. "Get it out, please, get it out of me!"  
  
"Honey, you're doing great," the thirty two year-old FBI agent assured her. Nicholas hand reddened from her squeezing it, but he was too overjoyed to notice. "Just give them another push."  
  
"I'll give them my life's savings if they'll just get this damn kid out of me!" She yelled.  
  
"Another push," the doctor ordered, and she did so.  
  
And then a muffled cry was heard. The proverbial stork had made his delivery of a baby girl.  
  
The umbilical cord was cut, the breathing passage was cleared, and she was cleaned off a bit. The doctor gave the proud new parents their congratulations and placed the baby in the young mother's arms.  
  
"Oh, sweetie, isn't she beautiful," Sela weakly said.  
  
"You bet she is, honey," he answered and kissed his wife's forehead. "The most beautiful girl I have ever seen." _And I will never let any harm come to her for as long as she lives. This I_ _swear.  
_  
Seventeen days ago. Ryker's Island Women's Ward.  
  
Although Shego was in gen-pop and worked amongst the inmates, she had more clout than other prisoners. The meds they forced into her suppressed her incendiary powers, but that never stopped her mind from being dangerous.  
  
She was permitted a visit from Dr. Zachary Tandy, a neurosurgeon she had surreptitiously contacted. The pinstripe-suited man in his sixties was passed off as an uncle who raised her. Family got special treatment in prisons, so the villainess and the doctor sat at a round table to discuss special matters.  
  
"So 'Uncle Zach,' when can you perform the surgery," the young woman anxiously asked.  
  
The nervous doctor searched about the room as if he were being watched.  
  
"Stop fidgeting, fuckface. Not everyone here is in my pocket," she whispered yet harshly enunciated. "I've been working on this since before I got locked up, and I don't need a fossil like you to fuck it up today. Now answer my fucking question!"  
  
"I've told you it would be a delicate operation, Shego," he said. "Neural interfaces with artificial technology are extraordinarily experimental, especially with the specs you've provided me."  
  
"You get paid far too much money for your uncertainty, Doctor." She smiled and rubbed her finger along the smooth table. "And you're still not telling me what I want to hear."  
  
"Once the interface microchip is attached to your cerebral cortex, it would allow you to mentally control and sustain both the animator and energy cage."  
  
"Good, when can you--  
  
Dr. Tandy held up his wrinkled hands as if he were attempting to convince her. "Listen to me, the chip was designed for a solo interface, and controlling two devices is stretching it beyond its capability."  
  
"I don't want anyone else to control either one," she said. "This is my dance, Uncle Zach, and I'm saving the last one for Kim Possible."  
  
Food court, so right this second.  
  
_My head hurts._  
  
Ron got the beating of his life from walking mannequins. The blond teen had valiantly fended off the mini army at first, but they got the best of him after a while.  
  
_Ouch! These bitches act no differently than any I've wanted to date...  
_  
He crumpled to his knees, but the plastic women continued their punch and kick barrage.  
  
_Ouch...this hurts. It ranks #1 on the worst pain in my life.  
_  
A boot to his ribs, a fist to his face, a slash on his back; Ron barely knelt, his palms laid flat on the floor, which was now slippery from the blood that trickled off his face. He saw it drip down from his eyes and onto the ground.  
  
_My Ron juice is leavin' my head. That's bad. Ow...this...ow...Kim, I failed you, honey. Rufus, tell Mom..._  
  
He started to tremble, his arms buckled and his support gave out. He had difficulty finding oxygen, and he heard very little except hard plastic hitting his cranium.  
  
And then it stopped.  
  
"Ron!" The radio squeaked with Wade's voice.  
  
Ron was barely conscious, and was fortunate the radio wasn't damaged. The same could not be said for most of his body. The mannequins were frozen in mid movement. Ron pried open his eyes to see their chilling stationary position.  
  
"Wade? Am I dead?"  
  
"I hope not, Ron," the genius said. "I've managed to disrupt their power source. They shouldn't be functional."  
  
"Given the fact that..." Ron coughed and wavered as he stood up. "...I see these chicks the way they are meant to be, yeah, they're not functioning."  
  
"Awesome!"  
  
"Wade, stand by." Ron limped over to a fire-axe cabinet, used his shoulder to break the glass, "Ow.", and then removed the axe. "Hello ladies! I would love to _axe_ you out!"  
  
Mid-Mall.  
  
A short moment ago, Shego relentlessly tortured Kim with her clawed gauntlets that slammed across her face, added to the excessive injury count Kim Possible was rigid and clung to life this point in time. Kim was wet, not only with water from the fire sprinklers, but also with blood from cuts and seeping bruises. She could barely hear, see and move. Her right arm was immobilized from the immense, excessive trauma, especially the sizzling mini-tunnel through her right shoulder: bone, marrow, muscle and skin were displaced by smoke, air and burnt crust. To look at this injured and nearly obliterated Kim Possible and not cry would be to have no mercy or have great strength of mind.  
  
The demonic green woman was in not much better shape, with her own blood covering most of her body, and Kim pushed her accelerated metabolism to the limit. Kim struggled to breathe, let alone stay conscious, but Shego dropped her to the floor after something alerted her.  
  
The animator was deactivated. The connection between the microchip, her brain and the device was cut and the woman no longer controlled it.  
  
"No—no! You have got to be kidding me," Shego yelled and then lifted Kim up. She held her close by her shirts and pressed within a couple of millimeters to her face and snarled, "WHAT DID YOU DO!"  
  
"She didn't do a damn thing, young woman," a rugged male voice said to her, "except try to stop you!"  
  
Shego dropped Kim to the floor and spun around to see Special Agent Nicholas Phillips drawing his weapon at her. The officer stood several yards away and had not lost his line of sight once he first saw her.  
  
"Oh, for crying out loud," Shego said, then spit red fluid. "Get out of my way, scum. I've got things to do."  
  
"No, Shego," Phillips said. "You're under arrest for....uh...everything."  
  
"Everything, eh? That's a hell of a charge," Shego slurred and stepped inward to him. "You think it'll hold up in court?"  
  
"Don't move another muscle, young woman," he ordered, and kept a steady hand with her in her sights. Kim was laid out behind her and far to his right and Shego's left. "Kim? Kim, are you awake?"  
  
"That's the-salsa-sauce-formerly-known-as-Kim Possible, officer," she said.  
  
Indeed Kim was in bad shape. Special Agent Phillips had images of his own daughter floating in his mind, but as a professional law enforcer, he had to remain focused.  
  
"I'll tell you what," Shego said. "I surrender."  
  
She held her arms over her head as if she were going through the proper motions of arrest.  
  
"Hey! Don't fucking move!" Phillips said and still aimed his weapon at her.  
  
"Take me in," she suggested.  
  
Kim slowly reached into the leg pocket of her uniform pants and removed a weapon from her pocket. Kim had not abandoned the fancy dagger she stabbed the villainess with earlier.  
  
"Last warning, Shego! Don't MOVE!"  
  
But she had not heeded his warning and sped her arms down to expend a very large deluge of flame at the agent. The officer saw incoming green fire, leapt out of its path, and it crashed into the stores behind him as glass and wood melted and burned.  
  
With every remaining ounce of strength, Kim lifted the dagger from her pocket, positioned it in her left fingers, pulled her arm up and tossed it at the back of the antagonist. It was thrown with just enough force, for the blade deeply penetrated and stuck in the left side of her back. Shego convulsed with the contact and flailed like a dying cockroach in trying to remove the sharp nuisance.  
  
While he slid across the floor after the dodge, Phillips fired his Glock 22 at the gyrating Shego, who hustled away. He still scored two hits on her left leg and when she twisted, a round entered her stomach. Shego could only let out a terse hack, but fired a left-handed fireball at the trenchcoated officer.  
  
The disoriented woman go hadn't aimed well enough for a dead-on hit, but the resulted close impact and aftershock quickly rolled the man like a baseball tarp during a rain delay. He collided through glass windows of another store, and then groaned while he laid down on the store floor.  
  
Shego finally removed the blade and broke it in half while she limped between the two well distanced apart heroes. But Kim valiantly stood up and picked up something that was knocked towards her after the new player came in.  
  
Shego's peripheral vision picked up the glint of metal from the Glock, and she turned towards the girl who saved the world on several occasions.  
  
"What's this?" Shego drunkenly said. "The princess steps it up a bit!"  
  
"You....don't—"Kim tersely coughed and hacked, and her voice was barely existent. "You don't deserve...to live..." _What am I saying? Is this me?_  
  
Shego stood motionless. She wasn't swayed by Special Agent Phillips' so- called arrest. He was just another dead cop. But this was Kim Possible, a person who never used guns before. It was an outright refusal on her part and Shego knew it.  
  
"Again, all talk," Shego said, as red spittle dripped from her mouth, she clutched her stomach from the gunshot wound. "You haven't made good on anything, saving the hostages, the cops, killing me. All you've done is continue the fucking trend, and that's **pissing me the fuck off**!"  
  
With the gun in her left hand, the impaired Kim shot a round at Shego. The evil-girl did not dodge, and the bullet grazed her cheek. For all Kim's ailments, she still had a minute perception, and her enemy was impressed.  
  
"Very good for a first timer, princess," she energetically slurred as blood oozed from the line on the cheek. She then scoffed. "I want to eviscerate you, but I _continue_ giving you motherfuckin' props."  
  
"Where are the fucking hostages?" Kim's question was never more concise, even while she was healthy earlier this morning.  
  
"The food court on the opposite side of the mall, and it would seem as if someone already found 'em," Shego said. "Guess what? I can't allow that."  
  
"What the hell are you talkin' about?"  
  
"There." She uttered finitely. "The energy cage will now compress in ten minutes."  
  
Kim's eyes widened. This was the very thing she set out to do, not to kill Shego, but to save innocents. It was the final straw. 


	11. Round 11

_Wade's Science Journal, 3/19/04_

_10:30 AM_

_At this point the microchip embedded in Shego's cerebral cortex had control over both the animator and the energy cage. However it had seemed the former device was not a high priority, for I easily disrupted the weaker interface between her and the animator. The remaining fusion, that is, her control over the cage, proved to be impossible to automatically sever, and I regretted that I could not do so. But there was still time, and I determined that Ron needed to locate a high voltage source to be directly administered to Shego, in order to short out the chip in her brain. The shock would either kill her or make her a vegetable, but either way the energy cage would cease to function._

_10:35 AM_

_Bad news: I read a fluctuation in the energy cage readout. Shego mentally activated its compression function with a ten minute countdown._

_Even more bad news: I also read fluctuations in Kim's vital signs. While individually, the injuries she had are not usually fatal. But they were far too excessive. Her heartbeat was erratic and her blood pressure was falling. I had calculated and diagnosed that she only had around ten minutes to survive if she did not expeditiously receive medical attention._

_10:36 AM_

_I heard the police radio communications and they were planning to follow Special Agent Phillips into the mall if he had not returned with Shego in ten minutes. You could cut these coincidences with a knife._

{Inside the mall.

Shego lied and was going to kill the hostages after all. The murderess clutched her stomach from the gunshot wound that Special Agent Phillips gave her, but she still had mobility.

"'Scuse me, I have to kill whoever stopped my mannequins," She groggily announced, then jogged away.

Kim wildly fired the remainder of the Glock clip at the green and black blob that motioned away from her, and then it clicked empty. She then entered the store where Phillips rolled into and saw the brown of the trench coat he wore. She knelt by him and supported his head with her left hand.

"What…the fuck are you…doing here?" She slothly asked.

"Heh, you're welcome," the officer answered, then noticed that Kim was physically unrecognizable from the girl he tried to detain earlier this morning. "Oh, my God."

He winced in pain and felt guilty for that after the nightmare he saw inches away.

"Shit! My right Achilles tendon was slashed by the glass! I won't be able to walk," he said offhandedly. "But you, God, we need to get you to a hospital."

He gently grasped her hand missing the thumb, and saw the gaping hole in her right shoulder, plus every other mutilation, break, burn and bruise. As he up righted himself, he felt the wet, soft dermal damage to her back.

"Kim, please, you're going to die if we don't treat you," he begged.

Kim didn't hear the words too well, but she got their inflection. The angel and devil stood on her shoulders.

Devil Kim: "Look at you, you keep trying but you can't win. This asshole is right! Go to the hospital, cuz there's no fucking way you're gonna survive."

Angel Kim: "Kim, there are a lot more lives at stake than just ours. There are a lot more families than the Possibles."

Devil Kim: "Oh, shut your fucking mouth, bitch. You don't even care that we're currently beaten to a bloody pulp! All you care about is justice. Where's the justice if we're dead? Do we really need to be a martyr?"

Angel Kim: "Kim, Shego is a danger to _everyone_. We have a responsibility to see to it that she no longer harms people, no matter the cost."

Devil Kim: "We're sixteen! We need to live!"

Angel Kim: "We need to stop Shego. She can't be allowed to hurt anyone else anymore."

"All right, ALL RIGHT! **SHUT UP!**" Kim Possible screamed, to the confusion of Agent Phillips.

"But…" he said.

Kim stood up and towered over the felled FBI agent. She brushed herself off, albeit to no avail, and sighed—but coughed and gurgled too.

"I'm sorry, but…I have to…keep movin'," She said, and wiped off her mouth. "You slowed her down, I think. All I have to do is finish it.

"Damn you, Kim Possible," he said with extreme guilt. "….and Godspeed."

Her legs were the least damaged part of her body, but before they speedily got her out of that store and towards the Food Court, she turned back, faced the man, and concisely spoke.

"Thank you."


	12. Round 12

The young, but villainous Shego passed through her hall of death, where earlier she stockpiled most of dead officers and other random bodies with the assistance of her animated dummies.  
  
Initially it was too easy. She did not have to capture every single person in the mall. That wasn't her goal.  
  
The elderly and carriage-pushing moms had gone nowhere fast thanks to the dummies. Those who escaped were lucky to avoid the speed of the living mannequins. So she hadn't encased them in the cage until she was sure Kim Possible was to have shown up.  
  
She used the dummies to distract and destroy the careless local police officers who thought they could overtake one unarmed girl. She then used the same strategy when she took out the snipers who got too close for her comfort. Everyone who bothered her earlier this morning got killed by her, except Kim Possible  
  
But Ron Stoppable was next.  
  
_Motherfucker!_  
  
Shego staggered in her trek to the food court, with an idea of who helped sever her neural link to the mannequins' animator.  
  
_Son of a bitch, cocksucker!_  
  
Her left leg intensely burned from the heat and impact of the bullets which rested in her thigh and altered her walking ability. She coughed up a red ocean during the long walk, and the bullet wounds also caused a blood leakage.  
  
_I don't like losing. I fucking hate Kim Possible and her buffoon boyfriend. Ow, my fucking leg. My head; I don't know how that cunt is still alive._  
  
She sporadically blacked out, but her injured legs moved her on.  
  
_Metal, I taste metal. I like this taste, it tastes like death. Kimmie will know this taste in a minute.  
_  
Various odors of different prepared foods barely hit her blood-clogged nose. In the distance was the circle of restaurants where she kept the hostages.  
  
Bloodied, bruised, but alert, Ron Stoppable stood holding an axe with a splintered handle in the middle of the circle of restaurants. Surrounding him was a pile of sliced and diced mannequins. He breathed heavily and had a wicked smile on his face. Rufus had returned to his pocket once he was finished.  
  
"Boo...." He blew his nose and unusually red snot shot out. "...yah."  
  
"Ron, did you hear a God damn word I said?" Wade's asked over the radio.  
  
"Yeah, I did, Stephen Hawking," Ron answered. "But let me bask in this victory, will you?"  
  
"You haven't won yet," Wade noted. "Because Shego's on the move, towards you!"  
  
"Oh shit, what happened to Kim? I thought you said she..."  
  
"Look out!" Wade said, having pinpointed her proximity.  
  
The mannequins were the victim of a green fireball that was initially aimed at Ron. Ron had not leapt away from the explosion.  
  
"Buffoon!" Shego haggardly addressed him.  
  
Ron stared in shock, not only at the woman who murdered and threatened innocent people, but also at her physical condition: her bruises, the blood that coated her entire body, and most notably her missing ear and missing teeth.  
  
"It's Vincent Van Shego, and she needs dentures!"  
  
"This was between me...." She wheezed between every word. "...and Possible! You had no place in this; _none_!"  
  
"Kim's my best friend, you demented bitch," Ron bravely responded. "She will never be alone."  
  
"Yeah!' Rufus added.  
  
"You're right. When I incinerate you both, you can share an urn!" At that point, she ignited her entire arms. She snarled, her flame engulfed the rest of her body and she walked towards the frozen-in-his-place Ron. Ron was in fearful awe of this feat that no one had ever seen. "You're dog meat, Stoppable."  
  
And then Kim showed up. She stood far away from Shego and Ron, but her presence was evident.  
  
"Oh, my God," Ron said upon seeing his best friend mangled and broken. Kim's right arm was immobile, unmoving.  
  
"She...---SHE----GO!!!!!" Kim screamed at the green glow.  
  
Shego spun around to see her enemy. "Kimmie," She greeted her.  
  
"I'm saving the---hostages," Kim barely said.  
  
"Heh—no, you won't," Shego said with a cough. "You're going to die."  
  
Ron saw how severely injured his best friend was and cried out. "I got her K.P!"  
  
"R—ron?" Kim whispered.  
  
Ron swept up behind Shego. However, she simply forcefully extended her flame in his direction. The fire scorched his skin and sent him careening back into a Burger King.  
  
"RON? NO!" Kim could barely see, but smartly realized what happened and clearly said to Shego. "You are so dead."  
  
"Bring it, fuckhole," Shego demanded, flaming down.  
  
Kim sprinted toward the glow but Shego just stood and smiled. The cheerleader got to within a few feet of her, but Shego remained afire. The villainess shot an instant stream of flame at her without raising her arms. They just expended from head to toe.  
  
Not only could Kim not truly see, but also barely hear. But the blood in her nose was cleared out by the sprinkler water, and her sense of smell was there. The brimstone and ammonia stench came towards her, her brain told her that this was danger, and she pushed up into a high bound over the incoming fire.  
  
But Shego expected this and while Kim leapt over the stationary villainess, she shot flames upward. Kim somersaulted in midair, and would have landed behind her if the flame had not tagged her left leg. The trajectory crashed her into the metal stands of the same Burger King where Ron landed.  
  
After she cracked hard to the floor, she glimpsed a pair of legs that rested next to her. They were attached to Ron, who sat motionless with his clothes nearly crisped off and most of his skin charred. Ron weakly said to her, "H-hi, K.P. Boy I'm g-glad I wore my boxers today!"  
  
"R-ron?" She muttered. "You're alive?"  
  
Ron coughed and slid over to the crumpled cheerleader. Her blood began to pool on the greasy floor, and Ron slipped a little on that and the combined fry grease. He helped her upright some but she groaned aloud.  
  
"Why're you here? I thought I told you to—"  
  
"We have to short out a chip in her brain," Ron immediately interrupted directly in her ear. "Using high voltage."  
  
"What chip?" Kim said.  
  
"I saw a circuit breaker in the docking area," he ignored her as he grasped the burnt-up axe. "I think we should lead her to it."  
  
"I can't. I doubt I'm gonna make it," Kim said with sadness.  
  
Ron saw his best friend, someone he had known since they were both in diapers, now a battered, bloodied and broken mess. Her beautiful face was gone, her athletic body spindled and mutilated, and her confidence shattered. He himself fared poorly, but so did Shego apparently. Ron loved her too much not to be strong for her at the moment.  
  
"K.P. you have got to hold on if I'm about to put on the best acting performance of my life," he said.  
  
Shego moseyed her way over to the B.K. in an effort to finish off the two heroes. But before she got too close to see Kim and Ron, the blonde teen popped into her sight.  
  
"NOOOOOOOOOOOO! KIM'S DEAD! I CAN'T BELIEVE IT! NNOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Ron squealed and then, still screaming, ran like an ostrich toward the exit doors.  
  
Shego stood and stared open mouth at Ron's tirade, and then widely smiled at the prospect of her enemy's demise. She resumed walking toward the Burger King food-stand and saw the tattered jumpsuit pants on the motionless legs of her enemy.  
  
"Oh this is a good, good morning," Shego gleefully grunted out. She finally reached the countertop and leaned over. Kim was unmoving for several seconds. "Oh this is a very, very beautiful—"  
  
Suddenly in one quick motion, Kim zipped her left arm up, snatched Shego's torn jumpsuit, pulled her into the kitchen and rammed her cranium into the metal shelves with a loud clang. Shego fell over toward the fryers and stood up. Kim quickly stood up as well, but both were still inebriated from their injuries.  
  
The two of them ran at each other, but Shego's footing was poor near the more greasy area of the kitchen. Kim, however, had pushed herself off the countertop wall towards her. When they collided, a red mist sparked off of them.  
  
Only Kim's left arm and both legs were the most functional, so she took advantage and let loose a flurry of close proximity kicks and punches. A left punch to Shego's jaw gave her even less teeth. They interlocked like two tired boxers, kneeing each other's ribs and stomping on each other's knees. They grunted and growled with every contact, and then after a minute of that, slammed into the fry grill.  
  
Shego suddenly got the upper hand and wrapped her claws around her neck. Kim's annihilated back was pressed against the heated grill and head was pushed back toward the liquid fat. She was so close to the hot lard that some of her hair was immersed and sizzled. Fear swelled in Kim's psyche once again as Shego unrelented.  
  
"Die!" Shego cried out.  
  
Kim heard it clearly, knew its finite meaning, and hated the sound it.  
  
"No..." Kim pried one of the hands that squeezed away from her neck, to the visible surprise of Shego. The villainess then enflamed her hands but Kim rammed a boot directly into her abdomen wound. As the ex-heroine doubled over, Kim dropped downward and pulled Shego's right hand into the deep fry. The evil woman shrieked and shook vigorously, but Kim kept it in deep while she kicked her left and right tibias, hard.  
  
"_Fry_," Kim answered.  
  
An upset Shego finally yanked out the hand from the bubbling fluids. Some of it splashed on Kim but she was so numb that she barely felt the spatter. The glove that covered Shego's hand cooked away, and so had the pale skin that covered her bones and tendons. Kim leapt away and out of the confines of the kitchen, back into the dining area, and toward the exits.  
  
Both of their means of running was inhibited, so it was not an exciting chase. However, the hostages saw both of them sprint away.  
  
"Kim Possible?" One mother asked.  
  
"Please don't go! Save us!" An elderly, hunched over man cried out.  
  
Kim hadn't heard their cries, but thanks to Ron, she finally knew how to save them.  
  
The teen heroine pushed through the exit doors where Ron told her to exit, and left stains of blood as she staggered through the narrow halls. She saw her hand with the missing thumb when she stumbled against one wall, but took great pride in knowing she took off Shego's ear and most of her hand.  
  
_Kim.  
_  
"Who's there? Ron?"  
  
Kim walked down the hall but there was a very bright light at the end of it.  
  
_Kim. It's okay.  
_  
"I'm sorry? But who are you?"  
  
Kim no longer appeared injured. She looked as clean and healthy as she did when she woke up from a good night's rest.  
  
"Hi Kim, I'm here to help." The voice echoed less, and sounded more distinguishable.  
  
"Help?" Kim asked. "With the hostages?"  
  
"No, that will be later. I'm here to help with you," the voice said. "Those people on your shoulders earlier were a little out of line."  
  
"I don't understand. Where the hell am I?"  
  
"Oh no, you're not there Kim. You're far from there."  
  
"What are you saying?" Kim asked. "Am I dead?"  
  
"Well, that's why I'm here. You're close Kim, and I'm someone who will make it easier for you to cross over."  
  
"Are you John Edward? I don't believe in that shit."  
  
"No," the voice lightly chuckled. "But I need to reiterate that you're close. This would be a good time to enter."  
  
"Uh huh, listen, whatever the hell you are, I need to save some innocent lives. I'm not gonna follow the advice of some voice over hallucination!"  
  
"This isn't a hallucination Kim."  
  
"I don't GIVE a FUCK! Get out of my HEAD NOW!!!!!"  
  
In the tangible hall, Kim felt a tackle from behind and slammed hard to the smooth concrete. It was Shego, who flamed up both her injured hand and intact claw-gloved hand and dug them into the back of her thighs. Kim uttered a piercing scream that if spelled in a comic book, would begin with "R", and end with several "E's" and "A's."  
  
Kim was completely immobilized by this maneuver, and had no stratagem to remove herself from it.  
  
_I'm sorry Kim. But this is it._  
  
"NO!"  
  
Kim was laid on the floor, whole again, and saw the light taking a humanoid shape. Hands reached out to her. "I'm not some alien life form trying to steal your soul, Kim. This isn't a Sixth Sense-like twist to the end of your grudge match with Shego. It's just...time."  
  
Kim stood up and with a pensive stare, agreed with this...unidentified being.  
The light reached out to her and she reached back, about to touch.... 


	13. Bonus Round!

Bueno Nacho:

The doomed hostages inside this fast-food kiosk took notice of something.

Ahmed the manager: "You hear that?"

Old lady: "I don't hear a thing."

Old lady's friend: "Of course you don't, Agnes! You haven't heard a damn thing in fifteen years."

Single mother: "No he's right! I hear something! It's a buzzing sound!"

Suddenly, the yellow energy cage slowly crept in closer and closer.

Ahmed: "Mother fuck! This thing is collapsing in on us!"

Business man who was on lunch break: "We're gonna get fucking toasted!"

**Naked Mole Rat**

_Heterocephalus glaber  
_Mammal_  
Order Rodentia_

_Special Adaptations_Strongest jaw muscle for a mammal its size.

The Garden State Plaza, back corridors:

For the past thirty or so minutes Kim Possible fought for her life, and the lives of others, against the murderess known as Shego. Both of them were destroying each other to the point where they had less feelings of being human and more of being the primordial ooze of human ancestry.

The bludgeoned cheerleader was laid face down on the cool marble floor, fiercely prompted by Shego digging her enflamed claws into the back of Kim's once athletic thighs. The green flames of her powers seared off the legs of Kim's jumpsuit pants and much of her epidermis. The villainess had not gone for those limbs all that much in this battle, but only did so because she could barely walk herself.

Kim had stopped shrieking after several seconds of this new torture. After all the countless traumas to her body, she dismissed this as the final one. Something had been summoning her to let go anyway.

Kim had not seen her tangible surroundings at the moment. The white light and the white tunnel and the enigmatic voice gave her a respite.

"Kim, hey, you're almost there," the light shape said.

"I want to go," the clean Kim said. "This thing she's doing to me is fun for her, and I really can't break free."

"You've endured a lot today," the voice answered. "You skirted death really well. I almost had this conversation with you earlier."

"But it can't be over...whoever you are." She hung her head. "I have so much to do. I've got a life to live."

"Kim, again, this is no trick. I'm not Dr. Drakken in disguise to help Shego. You chose this life, and I'd hate to quote your enemy, but there are consequences." The light form paused.

For the second time Kim reached out to the light shape, ready to leave behind the endless pain.

Suddenly, Shego felt quite a _lot_ of pain.

The cause: Rufus, the beloved pet of Ron Stoppable, skittered up the bloodied back of the knelt Shego, climbed onto her face and sunk his buck front teeth deep into her left cornea.

The villainess screamed and panicked upon the penetration, having not seen exactly what was causing the act, and not releasing! She relinquished her grip on Kim's legs.

"F-fuck! FUCK! **FUCK!" **Shego, with previous dizziness and disorientation, now stood up with this kind of pain pestering her. After several seconds, she finally grabbed Rufus and yanked him out of her cornea. Tiny pieces of eye flesh snagged on his teeth and were pulled along with his removal. The intelligent mole rat was tossed against the hall wall with a loud squeak and he was momentarily dazed.

Shego slightly regained her bearings and with her right eye, damaged by Kim earlier, she barely discerned her new attacker.

"F---f-zzzz-ffuckin', _v-vermin!" _She coughed out, and fired up her deep-fried hand.

Kim laid still on the floor, and through her clouded vision she looked to her left and saw a tiny pink blob. She let out spittle and gurgled a tiny bit in saying, "R—Ruf-"

"Hey SHEGO!" A familiar voice shouted. Ron Stoppable stood at the opposite end of the long corridor, and held a fire hose that was swelled with its expected contents. "Leave my friends alone!"

"F-fuck YOU, buffoon!" Shego shouted, and enflamed her hands toward Rufus.

Ron took careful aim and shot a powerful stream of water at the villainess. It hit her hard, extinguished her flames, and propelled her through the doors going back toward the mall.

Ron, still holding the hose, ran toward Kim. Some of the water fell onto her and Rufus but they were not struck by the stream.

"K.P!" Ron saw how she was nearly obliterated, but he had faith, and jarred her a little. "Kimberly Ann Possible, wake up!"

Rufus jogged over and lightly tapped her on her battered, cut and bruised face. In her tunnel, things changed.

"Ron?" Kim groaned out.

"Yeah, K.P., you've got to get moving. I bought us only a little bit of time." The young teen helped his best friend try to stand upright, but her legs were not completely up to it. He placed her arm around his shoulder and dragged her away from Shego.

Wade said over the radio, "Kim, Shego can't be killed while the chip is active. It's a fail safe. If she dies before you electrically short out that chip, the cage instantly collapses."

Kim barely processed his words but realized he was mostly trying to keep her awake and alive. "Cir-circuit—break—er," Kim said.

"Yeah, I found one," Ron assured her. "I exposed the wires with the axe but I couldn't pull 'em out. They were too hot."

"S'okay—s'okay—bitch will feel it." Kim wheezed and coughed up droplets of blood. She did not even have that much left to orally excrete.

Ron lugged her through the swinging door toward the large docking area, and where the circuit breaker trap was. "What do we do now?"

"Stand me upright."

"K.P! You can't do this!"

Despite extensive physical and mental trauma, and all the challenges by her light tunnel, Kim once again found a bout of lucidity,

"Don't you get it, Ron? I _have _to do this alone!"

"No, you need medical help! We've got your back!"

"Ron, what did I say earlier? Only I should be here!"

"Sorry, K.P., I'm your partner and your best friend. I've got an obligation to back you up in time of need. " Ron said the words with such honor and selflessness, hardly something Kim was accustomed to.

"Kim, back out while you still can!" Wade begged.

"You guys..." She began to argue, but then they heard a stomping down the corridor from which they fled.

They were in the arena-like docking area, and then they saw a green explosion blast apart the doors that led to them. They covered their eyes from the bright blast, and saw the nearly demolished Shego stood hunched over and ready to pounce.

"You fr-fucking idiots," the woman growled, clutched her single-bullet ridden abdomen and limped toward them. "You w—"Her lips fizzled with spit and blood. "--won't win this!"

Ron and Kim were distanced a several meters apart from their assailant. Kim, who returned to her less aware state, was seeing only green and hearing only muffled words from her. But Kim had no amnesia, and knew it was Shego.

The circuit breaker was in plain sight but the exposed wires rested above it and far away for Shego to touch.

"What next K.P? "Ron whispered in her ear.

Kim's legs were barely keeping her upright, but it had not mattered. This had to end. To Ron's surprise, Kim broke free from his grasp and quickly limped toward the green and black.

She go had less vision than Kim, and only heard the steps sailing in toward her. She fired up her claws but she was still overly soaked and distracted. The flames were diminished somewhat, for she expended a lot when she dramatically blew open the doors.

"Shit!" Shego said, having realized this.

With every ounce of her being left, Kim rammed into the lesser Shego, and attacked on touch alone. Kim precisely and tightly embraced the villainess, then pulled away a bit, punched her ribs and uppercut her jaw.

Shego staggered back as Ron and Rufus stared in amazement at what Kim had just done.

"Ron!" Wade said. "The hostages have two minutes left before they fall victim to the cage!"

"Wade, they're not even close to the wires!" Ron announced.

"I know that! But you've gotta get Shego to touch them! It's enough power to short the chip!"

Ron inhaled deeply and jogged forward into the fray. Kim felt a slight breeze at her side, then saw a blonde and black blob next to her poised to fight.

"F-f'r Christ's sake, Ron---"Kim protested.

"Problem?" Ron answered.

Shego fired up her hands again, but the less injured Ron leapt in with a flying kick that nailed her straight in her nose. Her blood shot all over his Converse. Shego shot back more towards the trap they set for her.

Ron three-point landed and was momentarily impressed by his sudden prowess. He then realized that Kim did most of the work. "Kim! Come on!"

Kim Possible pushed off her damaged legs to run towards the felled Shego. Ron followed but slipped on some of the blood Shego trailed as she flew back from the kick.

"This is just wonderful," Ron said with incredulousness.

Kim however, was luckier and heard Shego crack against the wall. Her breathing was labored and heavy, so Kim trudged up to and lunged at that sound. Kim felt her fists strike the area where Shego's ribs were once intact and repeated the action several times.

Shego snarled and swiped at air with her clenched, deep-fried fist and made contact with the cheekbone of the cheerleader. Ron saw the mini-explosion of flesh and blood shoot out, a combination of Kim's and Shego's.

"No, Kim!" Ron said as Rufus also watched in horror.

Kim's head twisted as she fell down to the floor. Shego loomed over her enemy about to strike a finishing blow. Ron however took umbrage with that, and strong-armed her lower back, tackled her forward for several seconds until she windmilled her left arm and struck his head that was pressed against her side as he advanced.

Ron fell back in a heap, and the evil girl faced him.

"What is your fucking problem, asshole?" She slurred to him.

And then Kim Possible smashed a loading palette over her head. The heavy wood was displaced by her cranium, but the deed was done and done well. She dropped to her knees, surrounded by splintered and crushed wood.

"Bitch—bitch—f-fucking die," Shego unintelligibly murmured.

"Shut up," Kim leaned in with her left arm, grabbed for green and black, got hold of the torn apart jumpsuit's collar and dragged her toward the circuit breaker.

Kim could barely walk, see, hear or comprehend. But instinct, that is where she is getting her energy at this moment in time. This should be the end to a very long morning. There was so much information that she processed. There was so much blood that was lost.

The demon lady was in the same condition.

But she had super powers.

The villainess fired up her incendiary hands and was about to blast her dragger.

However, Shego was not paying attention to the less injured and more alert Ron Stoppable. He had leapt high into the air and stomped both feet down into the wounded stomach of the villainess, and while he still stood atop her belly, Ron left-booted her face. His impact on her wounded abdomen shot blood from both sides, and having not known she was shot, Ron reacted. "God, what kind of diet does this girl have?"

"Ron?" Kim curiously said and slumped to the ground. The toll was completely stolen from her.

"Oh, God! K.P!" He ran over to her and helped her up again. Kim had no bearings, none. And they were so very close to the exposed wires, but the wires rested above the panel and Shego needed to be lifted to them.

"Ron, one minute left! Hurry!" Wade announced

"Shego is dead weight," Ron answered. "I can't lift her alone."

"Do something, Ron!" Wade ordered.

He searched the loading dock for a means to assist. He saw something that could help: a front-loading forklift.

"Forty five seconds!" Wade said.

"Kim, watch it!" With regret he rolled Kim far away from the barely conscious She.

Shego instinctively flamed her claws again, but suddenly shots rang out from afar. Bullets struck her back while she was laid on her side. As if the world stopped moving, Ron stared in the direction of where the shots came from.

Agent Phillips was standing on one foot in the exposed doorway, his smoking backup weapon in hand.

"Stop shooting you fucking moron!'" Ron cried out.

"Thirty seconds!" Wade counted down.

"What?" Phillips asked. "She was gonna blast you two!"

Her life slipped away, as she gurgled up blood and clawed at air. Ron ran towards the forklift and jumped in the driver seat. "Hey ass-munch, see if you can get my friend who saved your ass out of there!"

Philips hopped over to where Ron rolled her and snatched her up. Ron fired up the engine and accelerated towards the now totally dying Shego.

"Twenty!" Wade said.

Ron drove it towards her and positioned the mast under her. The lift raised her body upward but was taking too much time to reach the level of the wires. Ron had no choice but to drive and move the lift at the same time.

"TEN."

Ron steered the forklift toward the breaker and accelerated.

"Nine."

Shego was barely balanced on the fork.

"Eight."

Kim Possible was cradled in Agent Phillip's arms as he watched on.

"Seven."

The lift almost reached the proper height.

"Six."

Ron had to position the lift in order to propel Shego into the exposed wires.

"Five."

No matter where she hit them they would electrocute the chip.

"Four."

"Ma! I made it!" Ron shouted!

"Three."

"Top of the world!"

"Two."

"Oh, holy shit!" Ron exclaimed and leapt completely out of the conductive forklift.

"One."

The points of the fork struck the circuit breaker wall and the momentum sent Shego flying into the exposed circuitry. Her body convulsed, smoked and caught fire.

The hostages at Bueno Nacho were huddled tightly together. The cage was now lightly singing their clothes and some skin.

And then it stopped.

The hostages stared at each other and their surroundings. They reached out and touched the air, and nothing happened. They were safe. Kim Possible saved them.

The stench of burnt flesh made Ron Stoppable retch. His ankle broke from the fall and he barely was conscious. He limped over to Agent Phillips who just told her that it was over. Ron knelt beside them.

"Kim? Kim, please stay awake," Ron said. "You did it. You saved the hostages."

Kim had laid cradled in the officer's arms and managed a wry smile. "W-we did it."

Ron scoffed at that notion. "No way, K.P. I can't take any credit for this. You two had been beating each other to death. I was in a sewer for most of that time."

"Son, we need to get her to a hospital right now," Phillips said.

"Hold on," Kim very weakly said. "Ron, there's—there's been something I've been meaning to tell you."

"Yeah, yeah, clean out my locker. I know I know," Ron quipped.

Kim smiled again. "If I don't make it, you've got to know how much I love you."

"You won't have to tell me. You're gonna make it, just fine."

Kim closed her eyes and her head tilted back. Agent Phillips listened for breathing and felt her pulse.

"No!' The officer said, while he held someone his daughter's age who was dying.

"Help her!" Ron screamed.

"I don't know how much chest trauma she has! I don't know if I can perform CPR!"

"Damn it, try anyway!"

Ron was right. He went through the motions of CPR; breathed into her mouth and pressed her chest cavity.

"Hey again," the tunnel voice said.

"Oh no, you're so friggin' annoying." The well dressed and appearing healthy Kim Possible said. "And you've distracted me _so_ much today!"

"I'm sorry about that. Really, I hadn't expected to be seeing you."

"Are you going to repeat this shit to me about it being my time?"

"You're hurt more than any human being could ever take."

"So what? I have a job to do. Did you really think I was going to retire after this? I have a life. I'm not some shallow fucking cheerleader who can be a character in _Mean Girls 2_. I have loving parents and caring friends, and more people depend on me than I realize. Whoever the hell you are, even you've got to recognize that!"

"I guess I'm not only out of line, but also an unnecessary plot point." The voice seemed to understand.

"I'm afraid so," Kim said, and then heard the sound of counting. "That sounds like life to me, dude."

"Okay then," the voice sighed. "Give it your best shot."

The reinforcements stormed in from all around to see the nightmare that resulted from the grudge match. Ron carried Kim in his arms, with Agent Phllips hopping in tow, towards the gurney. The IV and oxygen were attached to Kim as she was wheeled by the EMTs toward the helicopter.

The officers saw the damaged heroine wheeled between them, and they stopped cold in their tracks. The same officers that stared at her earlier this morning with disdain, now looked at her differently. The stood at attention and saluted her, an honor bestowed on fallen officers only.

"I'm going with her," Ron shouted to the chopper workers.

"You can't, son," Phillip's said and rested his hand on his shoulder. Rufus sadly stared at Kim being hauled into the helicopter and quickly treated.

"We've already contacted her parents, Ronald," Phillips said. "They should be here shortly."

Ron said nothing. Wade watched the footage on CNN.

**CNN Special Report:**

Announcer: "Here's Paula Zahn."

Anchor: "The hostage crisis is over. The assailant known as Shego is presumed dead, but no official word has been given to CNN. Hostages poured out of the mall, and later the teenage protagonist had been helicoptered to Paramus Medical. Her condition will not be released according to Special Agent Nicholas Phillips of the FBI."

Agent Phillips interviewed via Satellite: "The situation has been controlled. We owe a great deal of gratitude to Kim Possible." Suddenly, he paused and appeared choked up.

"She is a true hero."


End file.
